Sasha Baron Cohen shows he has no limits

Rating: 9/10 (1 September 2006)

This film is great fun.It's one that makes you get cheek cramp from grinning. It is laugh out loud. It makes you squirm with embarrassment and it constantly makes you ask "Can they really do that?".
The film tracks Borat from his home town in Kazakhstan on a quest to improve his nation by learning from the Great US of A. He bids farewell to his prostitute sister, his bear of a wife and the village rapist and sets about reporting from abroad...yet on the way he falls in love with Pammie when he buys a Baywatch Magazine from a 'gypsy' and his mission changes.
The quest to bag her is broken up by his interviews, set ups and general experiences along the way, from ruining a live TV broadcast to trying to avoid getting lynched at a redneck Rodeo for changing the words to the Star spangled banner - which is all hilarious. You can scarcely believe the people he meets along the way and SBC's incredible improv genius at drawing out the worst in so many different types of Americans from frat boys, Pentecostal Christians, to Homophobic rodeo organisers and WASP High society.
Yet nothing can prepare you for the lengths that he himself will go to. Never have I seen such a scene in mainstream cinema where two men have a full on five minute no holes barred (yet crap) wrestle match (Borat falls out with his producer for cracking one off over his Baywatch mag). It involves suplexes, pillow biting and sitting on faces to suffocate the foe...oh and it's all totally naked. And I mean TOTALLY. The fat producers man yoghurt factories swinging in SBC's face as he cries "Eat my Ass". Can they really show that? It will haunt me and yet cheer me for many years to come. See this movie (but only if you are prepared to laugh at just about any ethnic/gender/religious/class group) - and see another man's balls in Borats face.