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by Willie Waffle
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Borat
Amid praise that
it is one of the funniest movies of the year, and buzz deflating news
that the
movie has slashed the number of theaters where you can find it when it
opens on
November 3, Borat:
Cultural Learnings of America For Make Benefit Glorious
Nation of Kazakhstan continues to be a publicity machine
(that’s the only time
I am typing the entire title, so any of you from 20th
Century Fox
who are reading this review can just deal with it).
Is it all hype?
Well, as my friend Paul used to say, Borat is
funny, but it’s not the Jesus Christ of comedies.
Shock
comedian
and star of The
Ali G Show (and the lucky son of a gun fiancée
of Isla Fisher,
which makes me triple jealous with a dollop of sad on top), Sacha Baron
Cohen
stars as Borat Sagdiyev – a television reporter from
Kazakhstan who has been sent
to America to make a documentary about the American way of life. However, while in New York with his producer,
Azamat Bagatov (Ken Davitian), Borat sees
an episode of Baywatch
on TV and decides he must travel to California to
meet Pamela Anderson and make
her his wife. Along
the way, the foreign
journalist and his producer capture snapshots of America,
try not to run out of
money and hope the TV station will want to show the program.
Will Borat find
true love with Pamela Anderson?
Not completely a
fictional movie (and you have to wonder how many
“candid” scenes have been
staged), Borat’s
biggest and most memorable scenes, in the spirit of Andy
Kauffman, are the ones where Cohen dupes normal Americans into
believing he is
a real Kazakh journalist, then shocks, offends and upsets the victims
with his
outrageous behavior. Like
most shock
comics, some of the pranks are absolutely hilarious and reveal more
about the
victim, who deserves some comeuppance for offensive views and behavior. In other pranks, Cohen
relies on potty humor,
which will make the kids laugh, but is beneath him.
Along the way, he shows the underbelly of America,
which
includes drunken frat boys, morning television personalities and rodeos. It’s a wild
trip, especially if the frat boys
tried to ride a bull at the rodeo.
If you come away
with one thought after Borat, I hope
it’s that Cohen is a very smart satirist
who doesn’t need jokes about dooky to win over an audience. As he travels across America,
Cohen
is able to make his subjects drop their inhibitions and show honest
portrayals
of themselves, whether that’s a good or bad thing (mostly, a
bad thing,
especially when alcohol is involved).
Also, he knows how to make us laugh with some of the
funniest visuals
you will see in a movie.
From the car he
uses to traverse the highway to the oddball pairing he makes with
Davitian to
the style of program one might imagine would run on a Kazakh television
station
(complete with graphics that look like they are from the
1950’s and subtitles
aggressively taking over the screen), Cohen fully creates his
character, the
world this film lives in, and makes you walk away with at least one
never to be
forgotten scene (and each of us will pick a different never to be
forgotten
scene, which shows the diversity of comedy on display in the movie). Even the costumes and
clothes are calculated
to elicit the most laughs possible.
Not all of the
jokes are funny, and some people might feel Cohen is rude and mean for
putting
the prank targets through their paces, but no one gets hurt, and they
all have
an amazing story to tell their friends, after the lawsuits have been
settled.
3 Waffles
(Out Of 4)
Copyright
2006 - WaffleMovies.com
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