Borat : Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

Borat : Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan Directed by: Larry Charles, USA, 2006 Comedy, 84min Distributed by: SF / Fox

Story:
Kazakhi journalist Borat Sagdiyev [Sacha Baron Cohen] takes a trip to the US and A to learn stuff for the benefit of his homeland. During his learnings he sees an old Baywatch re-run on TV and falls head over heels for Pamela Anderson who now becomes his new quest. Together with his producer Azamat Bagatov [Ken Davitian] they take to the road in a desperate journey from New York to Los Angeles.

Me:
Is Borat really a funny movie? Well Ok, so I did laugh out loud a quite a few times. Sometimes over old skits in new settings, old skits taken one step further and obviously some of the new skits and wraparound scenes created for the flow of the movie. But at the same time there's a way too familiar feeling to the movie that makes it feel tiresome, even for its short run of 84 minutes. Sure the gags work, but being an avid fan of Cohen's Borat since he first started hitting the air some ten years ago as part of the Ali G show we've seen the most of it before, we know where there going, and we already know what sort of a pay off we're in for. We've seen the two US seasons and we already know that the yanks are arrogant, racist bigots so I don't really know if we actually needed this movie. That's where I somehow feel that the 2002 movie Ali G Inadahouse, directed by Mark Mylod is in some ways a better film. Cohen uses his writing to set Ali G in his home town of Staines where his life outside of the TV-studios and bad interviewing take a new level, and Ali G has an adventure unlike anything that we have ever seen the character in before. (There's even a Borat cameo in the movie) Unfortunately that's where Borat is sort of a let down. The opening sequences in Kazakhstan as Borat shows us round his village and it's complex gallery of personalities is great stuff, predictable, but amusing, the new "candid" skits like the driving instructor & the ghetto boys before Borat wiggers himself into begging thrown out of a hotel also makes me giggle just writing about them, but by far the best are the scenes with Davitian which mostly work like a charm and have the fresh element that I was asking for earlier. I mean who will ever forget the naked wrestling? So yes, Borat is a funny movie even if it in fact only is a greatest hits package with some new material thrown in, but it works and is an entertaining movie.

Image:
Widescreen 1.85:1 Anamorphic. Removable subtitles in Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and Finnish are optional

Audio:
Dolby Digital 5.1 & Dolby Digital dts.

Extras:
This is the rental version and has nothing apart from a few trailers for other SF / Fox movies.