Review of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006) by Themagicalhippiekiller — 13 Mar 2007

This movie was hard to watch, not only because of some of the more rather tastless scenes, but the exposure of some of the dark and disturbing happenings and attitudes in our own country. The film had an oppurtunity to be smarter, but in this day and age where simple-minded humor is depicted because Scary Movie/American Pie types dominate, it fell flat.

However, it was still enjoyable, but only as a rental. The film runs only on shock value, and once you know when things are going to happen, the feeling is gone. However, despite several leud scenes and gags about bodily waste, the most disturbing parts of the film were most of the unsuspecting victims.

Several scenes (A high class southern dinner party on "Secession Ave"; an antique shop that is pro-Confederate; a rodeo in which much of the audience is depicted as racist; a Senator and Supreme Court Justice at a Pentacostal gathering; several schovanistic college students and expressing their views) show a darker side to American society, as well as show that Americans do not truly have a centralized culture; many of the locations and their populations vary differently, as seen in the film.

Unfortunately, the film does not focus on this the way it should, instead, as stated earlier, choosing to stir up some controversey. However, the best thing about works like this is that it can really help to point out people who are unable to grasp the concept.

I am not saying everyone who hates this is an idiot, some of you have very good arguments on why the film is stupid (Ray K, Morgan G). However, a lot of you should sit out on this one. And for the record, and I am suprised there are acutally people who do not know this, but Sacha Baron Cohen, the actor that plays Borat, is in fact, Jewish.

Also, this movie seems a little far-fetched. Unless this film was shot after each time he paid his bail, it was most certainly staged in order to broadcast Cohen's personal views.