RUTHERFORD ON FILM: ‘Borat’: Trampling Every Politically Correct Sacred Cow, Foreign Journalist Delivers Year’s Funniest Flick
By Tony RutherfordHuntington News Network Critic
Huntington, WV (HNN) – Attempting to implement American success and culture in the poverty stricken country of Kazakhstan, TV reporter Borat Sagdiyev (Sacha Baron Cohen) lands in the U.S.A. intent on shooting a “how to” documentary. In an effort to “learn” our way of life, the visitor from a former U.S.S.R. republic commits every politically incorrect racial, political and sexual slur imaginable. Once in N.Y.C., after watching an episode of “Baywatch” at the hotel, Borat falls for Pamela Anderson and convinces his producer to fund a trek to California where he intends to marry the actress.
Offensiveness and insensitivity run amuck as the literally hard-headed ingénue from abroad clashes with the diversity and equality of the United States citizenry. Mixing extraordinarily fresh fish out of water slapstick with the character’s ingrained narrow minded unchallenged stereotypes, “Borat” easily rouses hilarity from the audience and quickly qualifies as the year’s best sustained comedy.
His road trip to PAM-ELA and California sunshine takes on larkish elements as the dollars strapped foreigners buy a used ice cream truck and find themselves confronting their anti-Semitic terrors at the bed and breakfast of a friendly, elderly couple. For roadside protection criss-crossing America, they blunder the purchase of a weapon for protection ending up with a “watch bear.”
Americans initially respond eagerly and patiently as they graciously yet emphatically explain to him “guidelines” for harmony in our rubric laden culture such as the art of telling a joke yet maintaining reverent niceties by restraining punch lines. A rapid learner, the gentleman from Kazakhstan plunges rapidly onto sacred cows, taboos, and extended faux pas nary pausing a moment for breath.
The elaborately staged slapstick antics hit their marks with the precise trajectory of a roomful of falling dominos. The antique store wreck, rodeo foot in mouth disease, and the ugly, hairy, flabby naked guys rumbling seemingly inconspicuously at an upscale hotel guarantee laughter whether from the belly or from looking at gross bellies.
“Borat:” the mockumentary, (not the character), continually flashes roots of gutter genius by pithily hitting at the “foundation” of prejudice in such an absurd style that you energetically laugh at the speared topical taboos which come from the conduct of a likable, courteous visitor whose blindly ingrained “hang ups” took decades of civil rights disobedience to oust.
Often, his values tip the edginess of perceived hypocrisy, as, his routine, on-going response of blithely welcoming strange males with an overly enthusiastic kiss drastically contradicts his highly homophobic nature.
Therein lies the brilliance as the romp hinges on a delicate balance of Cohen promptly, repeatedly, and with innocence putting his feet in his mouth while confidently misapplying newly learned diverse culture (hip hop) in the wrong venues. Residents of Kazakhstan (in Central Asia) will have the same feelings about satiric fun poking at their culture that we “hillbillies” had when “Green Acres,” “Gomer Pyle” and “The Beverly Hillbillies” assaulted rural lifestyles.