It is nice...I like

Rating: 8/10 (26 September 2007)

The lead star in this cross culture docu-comedy is Borat, an energetic yet clueless moustached Khazakstani reporter. Borat is Sacha Baron Cohen's more appealing alter-ego, and this film is much funnier and wittier than the crude, cringe worthy 'Ali G Indahouse'.
The Ali G film was a failure as it took Ali G outside of his familiar mock interviews, which were humorous, and gave him a 90 minute film in which he had to operate on a higher level amongst a league of people very different to his bewildered guests. It relied too much on childish toilet humour and basically hammered a nail into Ali G's coffin.
Anyway, enough about the past. I am glad to say that Borat is a lot more amusing and smart than the fore-mentioned. The film is done in a mockumentary style, in which the reporter travels to USA for 'cultural enrichment' as he believes it is the greatest country in the world. He is accompanied by Azabat, a short fat grouchy sidekick who only speaks in his native Khazak, and helps provide the audience with a grotesque naked fight scene with Borat in a hotel room. The strange relationship between these 2 never lets us down in terms of entertainment, as a kind of Laurel and Hardy connection seems to happen. I would say the humour arises in seeing the blatant culture difference between Borat and the mainly middle class, middle aged Americans he comes into contact with. However, it isn't only that social group he encounters, there are the young African-American "gangstas", the drunken Leary guys in a campavan and the hand waving pentecostal Christians-all encounters are amusing in their own way.
His startlingly backward attitude to taboo subjects like animal cruelty, incest, mistreatment of woman and even rape raise afew eyebrows along the way, as Borat goes about his business with his own un-westernised attitudes and beliefs never far from the surface.
The humour can be offencive, such as the constant anti-semantic references (this is probably only allowed as Cohen is Jewish himself) in the form of Khazakstani village games and Borat's sudden fear and distrust upon discovering his kindly Guest House hosts are both Jewish. Then there are his comical reactions to being told women are equal to men and should be respected. This is NOT a film for the easily offended, but if you can appreciate the humour which arises due to the vast culture difference which is at the heart of this comedy, then you should be in for a treat.