Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

Comedian Sacha Baron Cohen proves to be a fearless comic treat as Borat Sagdiyev. The character was first developed on his HBO series “Da Ali G Show” and is brought to life here in a whimsical full length feature. Borat, an affable anti-semitic misogynist from Kazakhstan, is on a mission to discover the secrets of American success for the betterment of his struggling country. On the way he has many misadventures (both scripted and unscripted) with Americans (both actors and nonactors). Had Cohen not made Borat into such a pleasant and ethnically generic character, the film may have come off as cruel. Even though Borat claims Kazakhstan as his home, he really just seems to be a hysterical confection of foreign stereotypes. As an audience we see him as a playful, mildly offensive but mostly harmless caricature of “the other” as seen by modern Americans. The primary joke of the film (and also its most shocking truth) is that the people Cohen encounters as Borat are almost always too unaware or too hateful to be in on the joke. When Borat asks a car salesman how fast his Hummer would have to go if he wanted to use it to kill a pack of gypsies, the car salesman proudly boasts about the lethalness of the vehicle saying, “With this baby, you probably only need to go 35 mph.”

At times Cohen can be brutally intrusive himself, forcing participants in the film to the brink of their ability to withhold frustration. Yet, however unpleasant the deed, he performs it with such a kindly demeanor that we forgive him. In truth, he seems to want a reaction. He goes around the country basically daring people to call him out as an impossible character who could never be an actual Kazakh reporter. Unfortunately, there seem to be no takers. Even more unfortunately, people seem to go happily along with Cohen’s faux hatred shtick. By gladly agreeing with even the most painfully malicious statements, Borat serves as a sort of enabler for those who might otherwise withhold certain hateful sentiments. Cohen somehow turns his raucous comedy into an utterly insightful look at whitewashed racism in American culture. When Borat speaks of women being men’s slaves, he’s told that women are equal to men in America. However, an incident with a bunch of rowdy frat boys reminds us that sexism is not as dead as people would like to think. Some might mistake the film as an exploitation of bigoted humor, but really it’s a masked expose on the prejudice we criticize in other countries that is still alive in our own. Sure, Cohen is going for his own share of gross out, jaw dropping, politically incorrect laughter, but he’s also asking us to question if political correctness makes sense when the hatred it’s meant to publicly eliminate is so prevalent beneath the surface.

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan is a joyously foolish and unexpectedly wise movie experience that breezes by, leaving you laughing, thinking, and stunned. It’s one of the brightest and most original comedies of the year.

Grade: A