Borat

Reviewed by:
Pete Hammond

The official title of this film is Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, but whatever they call it, it's friggin' brilliant. Taken from his HBO comedy series, Da Ali G Show, satirist Sacha Baron Cohen morphs into his loopy Kazakh journalist for an eye-opening road trip across America while filming a documentary on the U.S.A. Guaranteed to offend just about everyone, Borat doesn't hold back, managing to turn his innocently framed questions into a stinging satire on everything from anti-Semitism and Bible-toting southern Christians to latent racism and George W. Bush. It's Punk'd meets Peter Sellers, and a lot of his "victims" clearly aren't in on the joke, making this as important and blistering a look at the state of the union as any movie with higher delusions of self-righteous importance. And did we mention you'll laugh a lot? Its not just the funniest movie of the year, it's the funniest movie in many years. If you want to be part of the conversation around the water cooler, this is the movie to see. There are so many individually beyond-hilarious scenes, it's hard to know where to start. Suffice to say there are a couple moments that will have you spitting up milk duds. It's clever, original, rude, current, eye-opening, and thought provoking, and is perhaps the most twisted, tears-streaming-down-your-face-laughing, pants-wetting, side-splitting look at this nation to ever hit a motion picture screen. However, if you are overly sensitive or from Borat's "native country," perhaps you ought to stay home and watch Dancing With the Stars instead. For everyone else, the deliciously subversive trickster Borat is pure bliss. Thank you Kazakhstan for giving the world a pure comedic genius.