I want to start this review out with a huge disclaimer. Borat!: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan is twisted, tasteless, and raunchy. It appeals to the lowest, most juvenile sense of humor that each of us has had buried deep inside since grammar school and let out on occasion among close friends and family. If you didn’t have the constitution to sit through Mel Brooks’ Blazing
Saddles, then go see one of the many other amazing movies out in theaters now and don’t look back.
Okay, for those of you that are left who can watch Blazing Saddles again and again, laughing at every joke without blushing a bit­—Borat is definitely for you. You’ll appreciate the same shameless and gritty social satire with its sights set right on the heart of American culture.
The movie opens with Borat in his home village in Kazakhstan preparing for his journey to America. Sacha Baron Cohen, the genius behind Borat, does an amazingly subtle job of comparing the cultural flaws in Kazakhstan to the ones that plague America. We see his unexplained hatred of his Uzbek neighbors and Jews early on in the film (Cohen is Jewish himself, so much of the humor is self-deprecating), and then he gives us a glimpse of “Red State” America’s unabashed disgust with homosexuals and Muslims as he interviews various people.
We realize in one scene that Borat has never actually encountered any real Jewish people and that his hatred of their culture is completely unfounded. Similarly, as Borat listens to people who talk of eliminating all homosexual influences from America and driving out all Muslims, we can easily tell that their fear and hatred is simply that of the unknown as it becomes clear that those who hate Islamic culture the most know the least about it.
Borat is a very polarizing film. I suspect that many people who see it will simply not get it. The humor is very dry underneath and very abrasive on the surface. Borat hits many of the sensitive issues in today’s society, including racism, homosexuality, chauvinism, the war abroad, Christianity, jingoism, etc. What Borat does well is expose the raw truths of these subjects using the guise of a foreigner, ignorant to the workings of American society and its taboos.
Borat asks questions that make the people explain how they really feel about a topic, and his foreign identity allows them to do so free of the social constraints that would normally enter into such a conversation. He coaxes a fraternity brother from the University of South Carolina to say that he sometimes wishes he could have slaves, and Borat listens as the organizer of a rodeo tells him that he should shave off his mustache because he looks too much like a terrorist. Somewhere in the middle of the movie, as Borat revels in finding more and more Americans as bigoted as he is, you begin to see the real purpose in the making of this movie. It shifts from being a comedy disguised as a documentary to a documentary cleverly hidden underneath puerile comedy.
As deep as this movie is, I don’t want anyone to lose sight of the fact that Borat is unbelievably funny. Although I felt somewhat dirty for laughing at many of the jokes, I was in pain from laughing so hard when the credits rolled. The movie incorporated almost every style of comedy, from slapstick to gross-out to the downright weird, my favorite example of which involved Borat carrying a live hen in his luggage throughout the movie. Just when you think the movie is about to take a turn for the dramatic, Borat throws his bag to the ground in anger and a muffled and angry “bak baaaaak” emits from within.
Borat is a heartfelt and hilarious odyssey across America on one level and a stinging critique of our culture’s values on another. I’m going to recommend it to fans of “Da Ali G Show,” the origin of the Borat character, and to those who can appreciate comedic satire that knows no bounds; because they will not be disappointed.
