Review of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006) by Sean L — 05 Mar 2012

Guerilla improv often has a very short shelf life, but this one's still funny even after you know where it's going. In Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen has a character that's perfect for dragging hilarious material out of his unsuspecting subjects: naive and disarming on the surface, vulgar and profane beneath.

He gets some really ripe stuff from the act this time around, with the lowlights of his American tour including a homophobic cowboy, a troupe of bigoted etiquette experts and an RV full of misogynist frat boys.

The short, storyline-advancing scenes in between each unscripted segment are generally thin and bland, but Cohen's ad-libbed torments of the unprepared masses are clearly the movie's meat and potatoes and it wisely never strays far from that core.

Brightly orchestrated, hilarious anarchy with a sharp edge and no sense of self-control.