Over-the-top quasi-ethnic comedy with a keen eye for the ridiculous

Rating: 7/10 (2 July 2007)

If you hate ethnic jokes, you really don't want to see this movie. Two things set it apart from the average ethnic stereotype spiel though. The first is Cohen's spontaneity and timing as the main character, Borat, and the second is the way that the ethnic "stereotypes" being ridiculed are often actual people. It's hard to argue that the "drunken college boy" is an unfair stereotype if they're filming real drunken college boys. The single funniest thing I found in it is Cohen's brilliant send up of anti-Semitism, which is all the funnier because it is so close to the mark on the absurd way Jews are often mythologized, as if they're mysterious beings from another planet. I think a lot of people who were really put off by this film were put off by it because they don't realize how much of the off-the-wall ridiculous stuff in in it is perilously close to reality. There really are people in this world who believe that Jews have horns, for example. There are also a lot of instances where at first glance, it might seem as though the movie is making fun of a particular group of people (urban black youths or charismatic Christians for example) but really the humor is not so much in what they do in their own social context, but in the way that Borat interprets what they do. It is often not gentle humor though, and it intrudes on the boundaries of a lot of comfort zones.