| Overall Grade: |
A |
|
| Story: |
B+ |
|
|
| Acting: |
A |
|
|
| Direction: |
A |
|
|
| Visuals: |
A |
|
|
Think of it as a litmus test...
by jon (movies profile)
May 25, 2008
1245
of
1530 people found this review helpful
You can tell a lot about somebody by his reaction to this film.
It's not all that surprising that the few reviewers who don't like "Borat" tend to be exactly the sorts of people Sascha Cohen targets in the film for their ignorance and bigotry. Nobody likes being laughed at, regardless of how much s/he deserves it. So you get reviewers admitting that "America is falling apart from the inside," but transferring their outrage onto "foreigners" like Cohen for making essentially the same observation. It's like people who think the problem with the Iraq War is the "liberal media."
Cohen as Borat is hilarious because he perfectly imitates what he's making fun of. But the real comedy consists in the reactions he gets from stupid people by convincing them that he's "on the team." One of the best moments in the film is when he yells "We support your war of terror" through a bullhorn at a Virginia rodeo, and the crowd goes nuts with enthusiasm. They don't "get it" until he starts mangling the national anthem. These are people who never understand the substance of anything, who only react to symbolism.
"Borat" is full of moments like this - in fact, it's relentless. But it works precisely because Cohen never actually shows his hand. He doesn't directly attack misogynists, antisemites, homophobes, American imperialists, etc - instead he pretends to be sympathetic to them. He sets them up and then lets them obliviously write the punchlines. He's almost like the anti-Jeff Foxworthy - "You know you're a redneck if you take me seriously."
One thing you keep hearing with regard to this movie is that "it's not for the faint hearted," etc. Perhaps not; but the brilliant thing is, this sort of comedy actually does provoke thought by getting people to laugh at their own character flaws. It's never preachy, but it makes its point, and there really is quite a bit of intelligence behind the ridiculously crude humor. I'd recommend it to anybody capable of getting into an R movie. If you ask me, "American Pie" was ten times as "offensive" and not even a tenth as funny without having any point whatsoever. |
My Public Profile 
