movie review: borat

boratWow. This movie isn’t for the faint of heart or for the easily (and not so easily) offended.

Borat is the movie based on the same-named character created by Sacha Baron Cohen for his HBO news parody, Da Ali G Show. Borat is a reporter for the state-run television network in Kazakhstan and is send by his government to the United States to make a documentary on…american life (see, that’s the name of my blog), which explains the movie’s lengthy alternate title, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

A mixture of scripted and holy-crap-there-is-no-way-unscripted adventures, the film follows Borat and his producer, Azamat Bagatov as they begin to make their film in New York starting with an interview with feminists in New York. The feminist’s interview was one of the shortest in the movie as they lose patience with Borat’s clueless sexism after about 30 seconds. The night before shows Borat discovering American television and by American television, I mean Baywatch, especially Pamela Anderson Lee Anderson. He convinces Azamat that to really discover America, they need to drive across it to California (avoiding flying in case the “Jews repeat their attack of 9/11”), but he doesn’t inform him that the real reason is so he can meet Pamela Anderson. While the characters drive across the country (in a ice-cream truck that has seen better days), hilarity ensues. Because he presents himself as an ignorant foreigner, it’s amazing to what lengths people accept his antics. They put up with a lot…but not everything. He manages to get thrown out of a dining club in Birmingham, Alabama, a hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, and is boo-ed while singing an improvised Kazakh national anthem to the tune of “The Star Spangled Banner” at a rodeo in who-knows-where. (My favorite lines from the Kazakh national anthem, “Kazakhstan is number one / Exporter of potassium / All other Central Asian Nations / Have inferior potassium.) His trip ends in California as he finally meets Ms. Anderson and asks her to marry him in a very unconventional (and absolutely hilarious) way.

Put it simply, Borat is really, really funny, but don’t even come close to this film if you are the least bit (seriously, the least bit) offended by jokes about: Jews, Muslims, Christians, Central Asian Nations, sex (all kinds), women, men, gays, mothers-in-law, bears, Pamela Anderson, Jews, a five-minute-long naked fight scene between a very hairy Borat and the over-overweight Azamat, Jews, public displays of…everything, prostitution, Pentecostals, Southerners, thongs, fraternities, blacks, whites, gypsies, Uzbekistan, chickens, Jews and mortgage lenders.*

That being said, if you are completely depraved and lack all sense of morals and decency or if you don’t take anything too seriously, then you’ll find Borat to be hilarious and yourself poorly trying to imitate Borat’s central Asian accent for days to come.

Rated R: for language, and…just read two paragraphs up

*list is not comprehensive

[rating:4]