High Five!

Rating: 9/10 (11 September 2006)

I came into BORAT fairly unfamiliar with the work of Sacha Baron Cohen. I had downloaded a few "Ali G" clips but had never experienced Cohen's other characters. I was delighted to make Borat's acquaintance.
The host of a wildly popular show on Kazakhstan TV, Borat acts as a cultural ambassador when he and his producer, Azamat (Ken Davitian) land on American soil, determined to document this strange country for his government's glorious cultural ministry. All goes well as Borat takes a course in understanding American humor and interviews a group of feminists but when he discovers the beauty that America has to offer in the form of C.J. Parker / Pamela Anderson; he begins an errant quest to make her his wife. High five!
The humor of BORAT is one not of cultural snobbishness where we mock a "fish out of Kazakhstan water" protagonist but where the fish is making fun of the waters he's in. Poking fun at rednecks, fratboys, fundamentalists, and gun nuts (among others), no one is safe from his cockeyed observations and probing questions. Some patrons of the earlier BORAT screenings admitted to feeling guilty for laughing at parts of BORAT. I imagine that the rampant political incorrectness of Borat's "culture" has and will make some viewers squeamish (with some to the point of being incensed) but I always admire comedy that plays against conventions in a smart, funny way. BORAT does this.
Laughing to the point of hyperventilating, I haven't had so much fun at a film since SOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER, UNCUT.