Director: Larry Charles
Cast: Sacha Baron Cohen, Ken Davitian, Luenell, Pamela Anderson
Have I Seen it Before: Did anyone not see it in 2006?
Did I Like It: I mean, seriously? If you had any interest in watching this film, you’ve already seen it. If you actually understood it, you probably got a little sick of “my wife” pretty quickly. Plenty of people saw Borat as some kind of hero for their own dimly considered political incorrectness. It never seems to occur to these kinds of people that the butt of the joke is the American mindset in the first few years (at this point, it’s shaping up to be the first quarter) of the twenty-first century. These people didn’t watch the character duirng his early days on Da Ali G Show. I did. I got it. I think.
I was laughing so hard when I first saw this in the theater, that I honestly thought I’d pass out. Cohen is so profoundly committed to taking his various pranks through to their most absurd and uncomfortable ends, one initially laughs at a new situation, before wincing that no human should try these things, before howling with laughter once again that he is indeed taking it far past your wildest fears. Then, those aforementioned people came around and quoted it to death and ruined it for the rest of us. Same damn thing happened with Anchorman. This is why we can’t have nice things.
Ten-plus years later, the potency of some of the laughs may have subsided, but the audacity will never diminish. One marvels at the naked fight Borat (Cohen) and Bagatov (Davitian) have in the hotel. That one might have some kind of qualm about doing the things they do for a laugh. And just at the moment you think this is a certainly a committed performance in a controlled environment, civilians are brought into the process. Maybe they are hired extra and more of this is an illusion than it looks like at first blush, but they want us to believe in the moment that this is really happening, and it takes nearly fifteen years and enough distance to think that maybe it wasn’t.
I may be a little fearful as to what Cohen may have in store for us in the forthcoming sequel. If the audacity isn’t back during the second helping, then it will be a sad exercise, indeed. If the surprise of the laughter returns, then it may just be exactly what 2020 needs. And maybe everyone else won’t ruin it in the process.
*I’m a little distressed that I didn’t have to look up the full title of the movie.