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Review #288 of 365
Film: Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006) [R] 82 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $5.50
Where Viewed: United Artists Denver Pavilions Stadium 15, Denver, CO
20th Century Fox Advance Screening
When 1st Seen: 26 October 2006
Time: 10:00 p.m.
Film's Official Website
DVD Release Date: unscheduled
Directed by: Larry Charles ("Curb Your Enthusiasm")
Screenplay by: Sacha Baron Cohen ("Da Ali G Show"), Anthony Hines ("Does Doug Know?"),Peter Baynham ("I Am Not an Animal"), and Dan Mazer ("Dog Bites Man")
Story by: Sacha Baron Cohen, Peter Baynham, Anthony Hines, Todd Phillips (Starsky & Hutch)
Featured Cast (Where You Might Remember Him/Her From):
Sacha Baron Cohen (Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby) • Ken Davitian (Holes)
Soundtrack: Download now from 
— or — order the CD below
Click for 'Review Lite' [a 150-word or less review of this film]
Note: This review is guest written by our film correspondent in Uzbekistan, Shavkat Karimov
Hello. My name is Shavkat from Uzbekistan—the country that is most hated by the character, Borat, in his film with the longest title, I think, in the entire history of moving pictures. It is called, I think, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. I saw this movie yesterday courtesy of the film's production company. Unlike Borat, the ignorant character played by Sacha Baron Cohen, who, by the way is Jewish in real life, I write and speak English well, as does the real Sacha Baron Cohen who is actually British, specifically English having been born on 13 October 1971 in London, England, UK. So, the first point I should make about this film which I will abbreviate for the sake of not wishing to get Carpel-Tunnel Syndrome just from writing it as BCLAMBGNK, is that it is not a real film. Well, it is, but it isn't. In other words, Borat is not a real person. If you do not believe me that Sacha Baron Cohen (SBC same reason) is a regular guy, then let me tell you that you saw him in your Talledega Nights as the Frenchman, Jean Girrard. It's true. I would not lie to you like some people. So, SBC invented this character and others for a British television program called "Da Ali G Show". Seriously, I am making a joke…NOT. So, the producers of BCLAMBGNK, which includes, SBC, got the idea to make an entire movie with the character of Borat. They, I'm guessing thought that Borat was so funny, he deserved an entire movie—it is a short movie, but it is longer than a television show, and there are no commercials, at least not in the middle of the movie. So, before you get any ideas about how offensive the people of Kazakstan might be, please remember that SBC is not Kazakstani. Also, before you get offended about how anti-semetic this movie is, SBC is a Jewish person. Now, for me, Shavkat, if I were Jewish, I would not make a movie that causes people to laugh uproariously toward my own people. I would not do an entire scene where a very nice, southern Jewish couple who own a Bed and Breakfast, invite me into their home to stay, bring me a nice evening snack, and later, when two cockroaches crawl under the door, say the Jewish couple has shape-shifted into roaches to come and kill me and start throwing dollar bills at them to get them to go away. No, I, Shavkat, wouldn't do such a thing, because I would realize there are so many anti-semetic people out there the last thing they need is to think that I, a Jewish person, think these things are funny. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the main problem with the entire BCLAMBGNK film. Some people who have seen it think it is the most offensive movie ever made. They might be correct. But, the worst thing, is that even if you don't think it's offensive, and you find it satirical, and you find yourself laughing at some of the material, eventually you have to ask yourself, why is this what an incredibly talented person like SBC would lend his heart and soul to make? And don't get me wrong, there are some very funny parts that are less offensive than others. There is a fairly hilarious part where he is at a dinner party after an hour with a southern, USA etiquette coach, and he makes a reference that starts out as a compliment to two of the three women at the table and ends with a zinger that the Pastor's wife is NOT one of the women his countrymen would go ga-ga for that is pretty hilarious. Sure, it is making fun of women who are more strident in their appearance and more humble in their attire, but it does not use stereotypes of a race, religion, or creed. Now, that's of course, if you buy the entire, SBC as Borat in the first place. How different this movie would have been if SBC really were from Kazakstan. Unfortunately, rather than using a made-up country, SBC has defamed an entire nation's worth of people. He has made the people of Kazakstan look bad in every possible way. They come across as anti-semetic, backwater, rubes who keep cows in their homes, French kiss their sisters, give school children rifles, hold an annual event known as the Running of the Jews where a man an woman with gigantic, goblin-like heads race through town chasing the Kazaks, and so on. This is all patently ridiculous, of course. And I guess that SBC expects viewers of the film to see this as such. He just as easily could have been named Billy Bob and been from the Appalachia and made the same movie, but would the USA people have found this film as funny? Probably everyone except the Appalachian Americans. And this is something that is wrong with humor in the USA outside of comic greats Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld. Too much of the humor is based on racial, religious, and ethnic stereotypes which is only funny if you on the telling as opposed to the receiving side. I was reminded of one of the most brilliant, but forgotten scenes in what most labeled a forgettable film that really was pretty goo, the recent Ashton Kutcher / Bernic Mac film, Guess Who. In the film, for those of you who have not seen it, and you should if you haven't, there is an incredible scene, where Ashton Kutcher's character, white guy Simon Green, is brought home to dinner by Zoe Saldana's character, Theresa Jones, to meet her black family headed by Bernie Mac's character, Percy Jones. And, midway through the meal, Percy baits Simon by asking him to tell a "black joke". Of course, Simon refuses and says he doesn't even know any. Percy persists and eventually coerces him into telling a joke. And, you can see the gears in his mind frantically searching out the least-racist black joke he's ever heard in his life. Which he then tells. At first, everyone is quiet, and then Percy bursts out laughing and the others follow suit. When the laughter subsides, he baits Simon to tell another one. Simon refuses again, but eventually is coaxed into telling a second joke. For a guy who knew no racist, black jokes, now he suddenly has an entire arsenal of them. He tells a third and a fourth, until he hits one that hits a little too hard (a) and (b) proves that he actually does know an awful lot of racist, black jokes for a white guy dating a black girl and who supposedly didn't know any. Racist, gender-biased, religiously-biased, stereotype-loaded jokes really are NOT funny. They only seem funny to those people who buy the stereotypes or actually are biased. True, to a degree, it's nearly impossible not to be biased in some way. So, chiefly for those working hard not to let these biases pollute their minds, these jokes are incredibly distasteful and harmful, and to those the 'jokes' victimize, marginalize, or denigrate, downright painful. These jokes tend to be used by those in the majority or power to humiliate or humble those who are not. Sadly, efforts to help civilization evolve on this matter got labeled as the 'Politically Correct Movement'; and, eventually, it was transformed by racists, bigots, and right-wing, radio talk show hosts into a bad thing. So, enter Borat, and his BCLAMBGNK film. If you see it, ask yourself if you laugh at things, why you are laughing. Are you laughing because you agree with the stereotype, or are you laughing at the situation that Borat has gotten himself into. When he releases a chicken from his suitcase onto the New York City subway train, while cruel to the animal, it is funny to see the reaction of the people. So, you might laugh. Had SBC confined the film to scenes like this, the film would have been a greater work of comic genius. Had he made up a character and a country rather than belittling and demeaning a real one, he would have had a stronger film. Watch out, my friends, for critics that say not to worry about this. That say, "It's ok, it's just Kazakstan." For these are the most dangerous of critics. When it becomes ok to marginalize and belittle another nation just because you can or your want to, and the media says it's ok because it's just Country X, then we have a problem. For such people are leading a cause for second-class citizenship for everyone they don't think of as in their inner circle.
Sacha Baron Cohen does an amazing job portraying Borat and keeping up this complex character. His co-star Ken Davitian who plays his faux tv-film producer, Azaman Bagatov, also does a really good job in his role. There are numerous parts of the film that would be just right on the money in humor were it not for the fact that the success of Borat depends entirely on the 'rube fish out of water' concept of the Beverly Hillbillies. Almost none of the film would be funny if it had been about Londoner Sacha Baron Cohen on a USA cross-country trip to marry Pa-may-la Anderson after seeing her in one episode of Baywatch on late-night television. So, go, see the film, laugh out loud, get it out of your system, and then sit down and really think about this film and what it means. Think about why you laughed at things that really aren't funny. Put the shoe on the other foot, and think about a movie like this being made by an actor born in Toronto pretending to be a person from the USA going to China to discover useful things to take back to the USA. Suppose he used gross stereotypes of what USAers are like to form his character, and then took this 'rube' to China and had him pull these stunts as a representative of the USA. Some how, I don't think USAers would find the resulting film quite so funny. It's easy, maybe one of the easiest forms of humor, to make fun of other people like this film does most of the time. It is more difficult, however, to develop real comedy via situations and depth of character. SBC has the skills in abundance, he just didn't put them to their finest use in this film. Thank you for your time. I, Shavkant, did not mean to take so much of it. I hope Borat will come to Uzbekistan and try to repair his relationship with my people.
___________
*Note: This review was not written by Shavkant. Rather it was written by the usual film critic simply for effect.
Sacha Baron Cohen does an amazing job portraying Borat and keeping up this complex character. His co-star Ken Davitian who plays his faux tv-film producer, Azaman Bagatov, also does a really good job in his role. There are numerous parts of the film that would be just right on the money in humor were it not for the fact that the success of Borat depends entirely on the 'rube fish out of water' concept of the Beverly Hillbillies. Almost none of the film would be funny if it had been about Londoner Sacha Baron Cohen on a USA cross-country trip to marry Pa-may-la Anderson after seeing her in one episode of Baywatch on late-night television. So, go, see the film, laugh out loud, get it out of your system, and then sit down and really think about this film and what it means. Think about why you laughed at things that really aren't funny. Put the shoe on the other foot, and think about a movie like this being made by an actor born in Toronto pretending to be a person from the USA going to China to discover useful things to take back to the USA. Suppose he used gross stereotypes of what USAers are like to form his character, and then took this 'rube' to China and had him pull these stunts as a representative of the USA. Some how, I don't think USAers would find the resulting film quite so funny. It's easy, maybe one of the easiest forms of humor, to make fun of other people like this film does most of the time. It is more difficult, however, to develop real comedy via situations and depth of character. SBC has the skills in abundance, he just didn't put them to their finest use in this film. Thank you for your time. I, Shavkant, did not mean to take so much of it. I hope Borat will come to Uzbekistan and try to repair his relationship with my people.
___________
*Note: This review was not written by Shavkant. Rather it was written by the usual film critic simply for effect.
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Other Projects Featuring Borat: Cultural Learnings of America
for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006)
Cast Members
Sacha Baron Cohen
• Ken DavitianDirector
Larry Charles
Writing and Story Team
Peter Baynham
• Anthony Hines • Dan Mazer • Todd Phillips| CD Soundtrack | DVD | VHS |
| Related Book | Related Book | Related Book |
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006) Review-lite [150-word cap]
Note: This review was written by Shavkat Karimov
Hello. My name is Shavkat from Uzbekistan—the country that is most hated by Borat, in his film with Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Unlike Borat, the ignorant character played by Sacha Baron Cohen, who, by the way is Jewish in real life, I write and speak English well, as does the real Sacha Baron Cohen who is actually British.
First I should point out this film is not real. The character of Borat was created by Cohen for his British TV show. Second, this movie is not really funny. It might make you laugh, but you will regret it later when you realize what you were laughing at. Cohen does an amazing job portraying Borat and keeping up this complex character, unfortunately this "rube out of water" story keeps getting fresher and better…NOT.
___________
*Actually, this review was NOT written by Shavkat, Shavkat was a character I created to write this review.
First I should point out this film is not real. The character of Borat was created by Cohen for his British TV show. Second, this movie is not really funny. It might make you laugh, but you will regret it later when you realize what you were laughing at. Cohen does an amazing job portraying Borat and keeping up this complex character, unfortunately this "rube out of water" story keeps getting fresher and better…NOT.
___________
*Actually, this review was NOT written by Shavkat, Shavkat was a character I created to write this review.
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