Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
   BCast :
Sacha Baron Cohen, Pamela Anderson, Alan Keyes

Director:
Larry Charles

Rating:
R for crude and sexual content including nudity, language

Running time:
90 minutes
   Borat is a funny movie. You'll hate yourself for laughing at it.
   A product of the twisted, fertile mind of British comic Sacha Baron Cohen, Borat purports to be a documentary made by Kazakh journalist Borat Sagdiyev while on a fact-finding tour of America.
   Borat, for those who have missed him on Cohen's HBO comedy series, is a toothy, moustachioed chap who happily embraces political incorrectness while mangling the English language in ever more creative ways.
   The film starts out in Borat's native town, where our protagonist proudly gives us the royal tour, introducing us to the village rapist and Borat's sister, the local prostitute. We get a glimpse of the burg's big festival, the Running of the Jew. Kazakhs, it seems, fear Hebrews the way Transylvanians fear vampires.
   (The government of Kazakhstan has expressed outrage at the film's depiction of its citizenry. Objections noted.)
   Then it's off to New York where Borat's Fourth World lack of sophistication gets a workout. He starts unpacking his luggage in the hotel elevator (Borat is thrilled to discover his actual quarters are much roomier), launders his undies in a pond in Central Park and inadvertently allows a live chicken to escape from his bag during a subway ride.
   Apparently Cohen stayed in character nearly 24 hours a day while making this improvisational movie, which means that anybody he encounters may be fodder for his comic improvisations. Typically he will introduce himself to unsuspecting Americans as a foreign journalist (that accounts for the film crew trailing him) and create outlandish situations.
   This deception at the heart of Cohen's method gives Borat an astonishingly high squirm factor. You'll be torn between roaring with laughter and wincing at the discomfort of Cohen's victims.
   Thus we find a group of feminists sitting down to be interviewed by Borat, only to watch them storm off when he expresses his own Neanderthal notions of sexual parity.
   More satisfying is the rodeo promoter who allows Borat to sing the National Anthem (making us long for the days of Roseanne) and who happily matches the visitor's every anti-gay and anti-Arab comment with one of his own. Or the boorish frat guys in a motor home who represent the very worst of beer-besotted American youth.
   Even the famous fall for Cohen's sucker punch. Borat lands interviews with conservative commentator and political candidate Alan Keyes and with former Congressman and now conservative radio host Bob Barr.
   At one point Borat gets "converted" while attending a Pentecostal service at a Southern megachurch, where the congregants are genuinely gratified that this stranger in their midst has been saved. It could be the single most cynical moment ever captured on film.
   Borat is essentially a collection of comic encounters held together by the thinnest of plots. On his first night in America Borat watches a Baywatch rerun and falls madly in love with Pamela Anderson. He decides to travel across America (all he can afford is a decommissioned ice cream truck) to meet "PAH-mella."
   "I want to hold her in my arms and make the love explosion on her stomach," our lovesick hero confides to his producer, obese bearded Azamat (Ken Davitian).
   Later Borat and Azamat fight over Borat's obsession, leading to a nude wrestling match that spills out of their room, down the hall and into the hotel ballroom where an astonished group of businessmen and their wives will find it difficult to digest that evening's rubber chicken.
   Finally Borat crashes one of Anderson's book signings, attempting to stuff the starlet into a large pillowcase. I find it hard to believe that Anderson -- who travels with several musclebound bodyguards -- wasn't in on the joke. On the other hand, if she's acting, her convincing display of panic and fear represents the finest work of her career.

This story was published Friday, November 03, 2006