Good PR, Not Funny

Rating: 2/10 (12 March 2007)

Borat (Cohen) a TV reporter, leaves his home in Kazakstan and goes to the United States to learn the culture there and report back. Along the way he sees a picture of Baywatch's Pamela Anderson and decides he is going to marry her.
The PR on this film is truly outstanding and the DVD is flying off the shelves. However, once you see it, you cannot figure out what the celebration was all about in the first place. This is not a funny film. Many sketches can be considered offensive, but the way this was done, I can't see anyone taking offense because anyone watching could tell it was a comedy bit and not to be taken seriously. The words "comedy bit" is used loosely here. I mean Cohen's big toothy grin is always looking at you, the audience, during the sketch, to get your reaction to what he thinks is hilarious. Many of the sketches were clever and some were mildly funny for me, but on the whole, not that funny, no belly-laughs as many claim. Admittedly, there were a few funny lines, or questions rather, and they cannot be repeated here as rough language was used to shock.
As mentioned some of the sketches were mildly funny, but if you really took a serious look at them you could see where they rushed the sketch and had they taken more time, then the sketch would have been funny. But, this was all too spontaneous, too fast, and when a sketch is rushed, the results are going to be mixed as you can tell by my reactions.
The best part of this movie, for me, was when Borat was learning dining etiquette, and I must admit, this was a fairly funny bit. If only the rest of the movie was along these lines, but they departed from this.
I like subtle humor and if this was done more along those lines, then yes, it could have been funnier that what I witnessed. But, this was too much in-your-face comedy (term used loosely), and hence not funny for me. And, I do like physical comedy when it is funny however, there is a point when physical comedy is just physical motion, and this movie achieves that.
Violence:Yes, Sex: No, Nudity: Yes male frontal, not erotic, Language: Yes