Kazakhstan discovers America, and vice versa.

Rating: 6/10 (28 December 2008)

Borat (Sasha Baron Cohen) is a TV broadcaster in Kazakhstan takes a trip to the United States with his roly-poly friend Azamat. His mission: To experience the greatest country on earth and acquaint its citizens with the folkways of Kazakhstan.
But first he guides the viewer through his home town, all its glories on display -- the cows in the living room, the incestuous relations, the "oldest woman in city" who is 47 and looks twice that. This technique is used throughout the film. As Borat and Azamat perambulate, there is a third person always present but never on camera, the photographer who is recording all these adventures on film.
The structure is by its nature episodic. There is New York City, where Borat tries to greet pedestrians on the street with a Kazakh kiss on the cheeks and they threaten to emasculate him or rearrange his features. Then there is Washington, DC. Then Atlanta and Dallas, where Borat visits a curio shop that carries items like a bumper sticker with a Confederate flag and the slogan: "Secession -- Because It's the Right Thing To Do." Complications arise. Borat happens to catch "Baywatch" or "Beverly Hills 12345" or whatever it is and falls in love with Pamela Anderson. His pronunciation of her name -- Pa-MELLA -- is in synch with his English syntax, of which you may get some hint by reading the subtitle of the movie. He is determined to wed her in the Kazakh manner, by kidnapping her. This leads to what impressed me as the funniest scene in the movie. Pamela Anderson is signing her book at a store and Borat joins the line of admirers. When he reaches her, he fawns all over her and produces what looks like a white tablecloth embossed with roses. He lovingly shows it to her and explains that it was made by his wife back in Kazakhstan. But it's not a blanket or a tablecloth. It's a kind of canvas dufflebag and he shouts with the pride of a successful fisherman as he throws it violently over her head, packs her over his shoulder, and tries to run away with her.
It is, at times, a very funny film, right down to the credits and the subtitles. Yet there was something distasteful about it too. It's not a particularly good-natured film. Cohen wrote it himself and some of the scenes are up-dated slapstick -- two naked men, one of them impossibly obese, wrestling at a public meeting. It's outrageous but it's not exactly clever. Then, too, Cohen seems to have taken aim at people and notions he personally finds offensive. Christian evangelicals come in for ridicule when they speak in tongues and go through faith healings. Homosexuals get it too. And he announces to a large rally, "I support your war of terror in Iraq!" (Some targets deserve to be skewered.) The only people who seem thoroughly decent and polite are an elderly African-American lady and a Jewish couple who run a Bed and Breakfast place. Borat is an anti-Semitic and he covertly spits out the food they serve him. I'd have found the comedy more satisfying if it dealt with the politically correct Thought Police or something. Or militant minority groups and their leaders. Spread it around a little bit, you know? One bunch of loonies is as silly as another. His victims are safe, easy to mock. (How did he miss the Miss American pageant?)
The underlying theme of contempt is not dismissable, but what we see is diverting and amusing enough and we can thank the Great Jub Jub that at no point does Cohen treat the material as serious enough to turn it into a platitudinous sermon on tolerance, understanding, and love. That's one big pitfall that every attempt at comedy must skirt, and "Borat" does so successfully.