Fairly entertaining but far from Baron Cohen's best work

Rating: 6/10 (16 April 2020)

I was always a big fan of the Borat skits on 'Da Ali G Show' and loved the shockumentary style humour. Borat doesn't have the same incisive ability to destroy his subjects as Ali G but his clumsy slapstick act is very witty and strangely charming. Overall though, the film fell a bit flat. It kind of felt like Baron Cohen had used all his best jokes on the TV show and, as a result, the movie felt a bit stale and repetitive.
I appreciate the fact that there was an attempt at an actual storyline (however flimsy) rather than just presenting a collection of unrelated clips like in the Jackass movies. I found some scenes to be highly entertaining, particularly the naked fight with Bagatov in the hotel and the Jewish bed-and-breakfast escape.
What Sacha Baron Cohen does best is to humiliate deplorable people in a wonderfully subtle manner. The scene where he travels with the repulsive frat-boys is probably the best example of this, but the Virginian Rodeo and the Pentecostal church intervention were also quite shocking. I generally found these scenes more uncomfortable than entertaining, but I guess if the goal was to expose bigotry and stupidity, this is perfect execution.
I must say I strongly disagree with the idea that this movie is bold, daring and outrageous. The people Baron Cohen goes after (religious nuts, upper-class toffs, feminists, frat-boys etc) are low-hanging fruit for an act like Borat. There is a certainly an element of danger when it comes to potentially being attacked in public, but there is nothing edgy or outrageous going on here. It's not a problem for me (I'm just here for the comedy) but it irks me that people think Baron Cohen is some kind of taboo-breaking social anarchist.
Borat certainly provides a good laugh but it lacks ingenuity and gets a bit tiresome in places. I would rather re-watch the original TV clips than watch the movie again.