I laughed until I cried. Shows a mirror to America's dark side.

Rating: 10/10 (4 November 2006)

Story: Barat comes to America and travels from New York to California. It is a road movie, and most of the episodes are real people saying and doing outrageous things. There is a framework of staged scenes to create storyline.
Review:
This is clearly the funniest movie in years. I laughed so hard that I cried. When I was at the movie I thought that most of the scenes were staged, and found out later that it was mostly real. The realness makes this even more remarkable, even though some of the fake scenes are memorable too.
Of course this is an outrageous mirror showing America ugly things.
I am worried about foreigners seeing this movie and getting an even more negative idea of Americans. I have read a review in German. It is one thing for Americas to laugh at Americans, and another to have the Germans believing that Americans are this bad. Mostly it shows that Americans are a little stupid and maybe too polite.
So is this a great movie or just a good one? Movies need to be both enjoyable and meaningful to be great. Since this movie had a real purpose and because it was the funniest movie in memory, I must give it a top rating. On the other hand, it is mostly entertainment, and not a documentary, even a biased one like Fanrenheit 911.
My wife noticed that the IMDb ratings for women were much lower than for men. Nonetheless, she liked the movie a lot. I think it is helpful to know that the movie is a satire, and not a affirmation of prejudice. Still this is not a good date movie.