Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazahkstan (2006)

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

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ out of 5

Directed by Larry Charles

Starring Sacha Baron Cohen as Borat Sagdiyev

Imdb Link

3rd watch

A Kazakh TV reporter, Borat (Sacha Baron Cohen), is sent to America to learn all about American culture.  While there, he offends nearly everyone, and falls in love with Pamela Anderson, who he decides he will marry.

Borat if nothing else, is the funniest movie I have ever seen.  Every single time I watch it, I laugh even harder, at jokes I missed because I was laughing to hard to catch the first time, and also laughing harder because I know more about the film, and the lengths Sacha Baron Cohen went to to make people feel uncomfortable.  Often people mention this film among those that you can only watch once.  Some people say that it’s humor is in the shock, and that it isn’t as funny the second time.  I personally disagree with this, like I said, I still find this movie to be the funniest I have ever seen, and I also disagree that the humor is in the shock.  I think that Borat‘s humor is very much satirical, and a lot of it is in how people react to Borat.  Some people treat him as an alien, others a child, some try to force their hateful beliefs on him, others do their best to be kind.  What’s so satirical about Borat is that in forcing a foreign stereotype that has absolutely no grounding in reality, into America, you can show how people truly are.  It can really be seen as a political satire of America instead of just an ordinary dumb comedy.  Maybe I’m just thinking a little too deeply about Borat, but it is truly a smart movie.  Next, I have to mention how good Sacha Baron Cohen is.  He gives one of the best performances of all time here, that might seem like a stretch, but I don’t believe it is.  He is fantastic.  The thing about Cohen is that he loses himself in his roles.  He transforms into the character.  With this movie, he basically had to improvise so much, and he had to always stay seeming kind of innocent while offending the hell out of people.  He pulled off a character that I don’t think anyone else could have pulled off.  At least as well as he did.  I think what shows the most is that even though Borat was a popular character on a Tv show before this film, people still completely believed that he was the character.  No one had any doubt, and not even a thought crossed their minds that this man was faking it all.  That is great acting.  Just overall, Borat is an amazing film.  By far the funniest, raunchiest, most offensive comedy I have ever seen.  But it is also just a fantastic movie.  If you haven’t seen it, please, watch it now.