Hilarious, obscene, groundbreaking

Rating: 9/10 (24 November 2006)

There needs to be a new word invented for the act of laughing and cringing simultaneously; I propose that we call it Borating. This is easily the funniest movie of the year, probably the funniest of the past several years. It's a cross between the best of the Inspector Clousseau movies and Mississippi Burning, played for laughs in front of a group of completely clueless yokels who never quite get that they're the joke. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, since they're always a letdown) there won't be a sequel; Borat's been doomed by his own success, and will probably never again be able to get away with the stuff he does in this movie. Favorite bits include turning a hyperpatriotic rodeo crowd against him with his own version of the national anthem, presenting the hostess of a ridiculously formal Southern dinner party with a fresh bag of his own feces, and chasing his obese producer through a hotel lobby and into a crowded elevator, both of them stark naked and hairy, after catching the man masturbating to a photo of Borat's beloved Pamela Anderson.