Borat skews everything with phallic edged humor.
by Michael Bergeron
I am being paid Fifty Kazakhstani Tenges to write about “Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm.” That roughly comes out 12-cents USD but I guarantee you this review is worth twice that.
There are so many jerking off jokes abounding in this “Borat” sequel that Amazon who is distributing the film should hire Jeffrey Toobin to live tweet the movie in a high profile Zoom event.
While Amazon has requested that spoilers be kept to a minimum its inconceivable that the Internet-slash-media will ignore the one person that Sacha Baron Cohen actually catches with his hand down his pants – former Mayor of Gotham and McDonald Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
Attempts to pull the wool over the audiences’ eyes as to the naivety of people that are fooled by Cohen dressed up in his Borat mystique leave the filmmakers little leeway. That was a train that pulled out of the station in 2006 when the original film came out.
Previously Cohen had delved into disguise seeking truth as Ali G, as well as his follow-up to “Borat,” “Brüno.” Currently Cohen wows in his portrayal of Abbie Hoffman in the well reviewed “Trial of the Chicago 7.”
Like a good sequel “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” starts where “Borat” left off, only our accented hero has been in prison for the last 14 years after the original film embarrassed the leaders of his homeland Kazakhstan, a country that never met an election that wasn’t rigged.
Borat’s given a chance at redemption and freedom if he will deliver a gift to the leaders of the United States. At first the present is a monkey but that changes quickly to Borat’s daughter Tutar. Upon landing by freighter in Galveston, Borat and Tutar make their way across the heartland eventually ending up in the corridors of power.
What was funny a decade-and-a-half ago doesn’t carry the laugh quota in today’s hyper-stressed politically correct arena. From the PMS copy shop that Borat uses to send fax accounts of his mission to his superiors to plastic surgery and anti-abortion clinics to political rallies the film constantly presents opportunities to offend every possible person that could be offended.
Think of what Mel Brooks did with films like “Blazing Saddles” and turn the satire up several notches. There’s no thin line between discrimination and rational debate and Cohen is through debating.
Fact is, even the film’s depictions of racism and hatred pale in comparison to the real thing as seen daily in the news.
Perhaps the most blatant bunch of suppressed laughs occurs at a Georgia debutante ball where Tutar shows up as Sandra Jessica Parker Sagdiyev with Borat in tow as her father a Southern Gentleman Professor with beard and wig. Suffice it to say that the humor goes full menstrual, which isn’t that surprising since we’ve already whipped through a dozen full frontal or onanism gags
At one point Borat moves in with two conspiracy buffs and spends a week living with them exploring different wild theories from Hillary eating children to the Corona virus. It’s clever the way Cohen weaves the pandemic lockdown into his narrative. Yet watching the film you never really believe that practically the entire cast isn’t in on the joke, at least until the end.
Borat crashes a Mike Pence speech dressed in an elaborate (and expensive looking) McDonald Trump fat suit while Tutar interviews Giuliani in a hotel room. Here the true rebellious nature of “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” comes to the rescue of what had previously been a movie trying to mug its way out of sequelitis.
Amazon Prime starting streaming “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” Friday, October 23.
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