An offensive letdown

Rating: 4/10 (5 November 2006)

This film had a lot of potential, but Sacha Baron Cohen rarely capitalized on it. He basically just resorted to making comments that reflected how "backward" his fictional Kazakhstan is. People have the right to be offended. However, I am by no means advocating the censorship of this movie. In fact, the most outrageous scenes in the film (which must have raised the eyebrows of the censors at the MPAA) are also the funniest.
There is an ongoing debate on whether it is appropriate for Sacha Baron Cohen to create a character who is supposedly from a real country, Kazakhstan, and then proceed to insult the country for an hour and a half by acting like a racist, misogynistic idiot (among many other things). Some argue that Baron Cohen's motivations - to expose usually carefully hidden American ignorance, racism and prejudice - justify the film's content. I do not buy into this for one primary reason: the majority of the people will laugh for all the "wrong" reasons and few of the "right" ones. In the theater, many scenes that elicited laughs clearly did so by simply portraying highly racist and sexist beliefs, not by exposing the ignorance that those beliefs are predicated upon.
It is sad to say, but the majority of Americans have been brainwashed for so long that they are not ready to see this movie and definitely not equipped to understand the complicated, highly critical satire that it is meant to be. Many may argue that a movie should be judged on its "real" or intended message, not what people take from it, and that makes perfect sense. But the question is whether Baron Cohen motivations are purely honorable. Let's remember how much money is at stake here. The movie has already made over 20 million dollars at the U.S. box office. It seems much too convenient to make a movie that can be interpreted in at least two ways and make the majority of the money off of people who are laughing AT Borat and the ultra-racist stereotype he represents, not the critical lens of American society and culture that some will see him as.
Many, possibly even the majority, of the jokes in the film are based on Borat's ignorance, not on the ignorance of the people he interacts with. The notable exception is a stand-out scene at a rodeo in which Borat whips the crowd into a small frenzy about the "war of terror" and killing all the Iraqis.
I am afraid the frat boys that Borat encounters during his travels represent the response that mainstream American will have to this film - albeit exaggerated.
In future films, Baron Cohen should be more critical and rely on exposing ignorance, not participating in it.
That's not to say that an intelligent, critical person won't laugh at the film. Everyone will, especially during the soon-to-be infamous hotel scene. However, I left the theater thinking more about Baron Cohen's motivations and the average American's reaction than how Borat pulled the wool over so many people's eyes to create this biting satire.
4 out of 10