Review of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006) by Rob S — 03 Sep 2015

Borat is over the top, highly offensive at times, making it uncomfortable to watch for certain scenes. Some of these scenes are uncomfortable in a good way though as they point out how bigoted certain Americans can be. Though the intent for this movie was to be a comedic road film, it accidentally turned out to be a well-structured commentary on America as a side note for this extremely raunchy film.

One fact I dislike about the making of this film is that the filmmakers didn't have the "real" people they interacted with sign release forms, which instigated a lawsuit by the frat brothers in the film as they did not want their families to see them act the way they did on their part of the road trip depicted in this film. While the lack of release forms brought out honesty and bluntness from the real people shown in the film, it was very inconsiderate of the filmmakers.

What is quite brilliant is the "bad" aspects of America depicted in this film. When Borat visits a rodeo to sing his national anthem, we get racist comments from people who are involved in the rodeo, we see the crowd strongly agree with Borat about "killing all the terrorists," showing the ugly side of being a radical in the U.S. Funny and uncomfortable moments also depict real people making offensive comments about Jewish people, homosexuals, and other minorities.

Aside from the sub-theme of a commentary on America, this film is very funny, although a lot of the comedy deals with Borat's own bigotry, which is not so bad when you think about it since it is Sacha Baron Cohen, an American, playing the role of a character - part of the fiction in this film. This can be seen as a commentary of bigotry in general as well, though Borat's bigotry mainly deals with the Jewish community. Seeing Borat trying to adjust to and learn from American customs time and time again evokes big laughs from the audience since he is clueless about manners and respect for certain people. One of the best moments of the film is when Borat's driving instructor informs him that women can choose who to have sex with in America and Borat goes wide-eyed as exclaims "WHAT?!?".

If you are easily offended this is not a film for you, but this is a surprisingly very good comedy and a good commentary on America.