Borat Subsequent Moviefilm - Review Thread

While actor/comedian Sacha Baron Cohen's character of Borat Sagdiyev, a journalist from Kazakhstan, was known to fans of his semi-popular Da Ali G Show, when Borat got his own feature length theatrical release in 2006 both Borat and Cohen became cultural phenomenons. Many people had never even heard of the country of Kazakhstan let alone the versatile comedian who pranked unknowing, real people into compromising acts and discussions through his seemingly naive and culturally out-of-touch characters on his show. Borat was a hilarious and unique experience, taking the sort of mockumentary approach and amplifying it with crude yet brilliantly staged scenarios that generally took America's most ignorant and culturally dubious citizens and spun their own bigotry right back at them. Admittedly I haven't revisited Borat since seeing it in theaters in 2006, but I feel confident in saying it would hold up well today and still shock viewers while making them try to suppress their laughter. I hadn't thought much about Cohen returning to the character, especially since in the wake of Borat Cohen has had middling success in trying to replicate the heights of his initial feature with less interesting fare aside from his bold and shockingly funny critique of conservative America on the Showtime series Who Is America. But seemingly out of nowhere Borat is back, and this time around Cohen has a far more precise political aim that he sets the Kazakhstani journalist on with America's pivotal election right around the corner. Like many sequels to initial surprise hits, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (the film's actual title is much longer and much more hilarious) doesn't have the shock value of being our first go around with the character and the format feels a lot more staged this time around, but nonetheless Cohen has crafted another pointedly funny, absurd adventure with Kazakhstan's most famous "citizen" that's sure to be even more polarizing than the original film back in 2006.

Since achieving his most glorious fame from the first film, times have been tough for Borat. The government has seen itself become the laughingstock of the world, no longer in discussions with the global strongmen that they admire (were they ever?) and as punishment for this embarrassment Borat is now confined to hard labor. He's given a second chance to make amends though when the government learns they have an opportunity to become friends with American president "McDonald" Trump, and can do so by offering a gift to Vice President Mike Pence. The gift is a monkey named Johnny who not only is in charge of a cabinet in the government but also is the most popular porn star in the country. Impressive stuff that will surely win Pence over. Things get shaken up though when Borat's recently discovered daughter, Tutar (Maria Bakalova), stows away and joins her father in America. The new plan is now to offer her as a bride to Pence, fulfilling her eastern European desires to transform into her idol, Melania. The rest of the film follows the similarly loosely plotted scenarios of the first movie, where Borat and Tutar hop from one unsuspecting group of people to the next engaging in very timely political discussions and naively firing American hypocrisy and ignorance right back in their faces. While the sequel doesn't have nearly the gut busting scenes that the original offered, there's still plenty to be entertained by this time around with highlights including a father-daughter dance at a debutante ball and Borat crashing CPAC dressed as first a KKK member and then as "McDonald" Trump himself. All of this culminates in a scene with Rudy Giuliani, the man once dubbed "America's Mayor" who is now the laughingstock (I suppose the Kazakhstan) of politics, which is of course already embroiled in immense controversy and embarrassment for the consistently beleaguered "attorney".

Despite the proceedings being fun ones, the film noticeably loses steam in its third act when Borat confronts the coronavirus and goes to live with a couple of "rednecks". These moments are highly scripted ones and not very funny at that, and it's a disappointing direction for the film to veer into given the best scenarios of the first two films are undoubtedly the ones that aren't scripted at all. Perhaps the coronavirus and the difficulty with filming and being in public is what led to the third act basically being an unfunny series of script pages, which is understandable, but nonetheless after laughing through the first hour of the film I was resigned to chuckles for the final portion. The film is also pretty one-note and at times even predictable, clearly issues with trying to make lightning for a character like Borat strike twice. Thankfully his co-star Bakalova is sensational as Tutar and arguably generates just as many laughs as Cohen does to inject much needed new energy into the sequel. In the end, while Borat Subsequent Moviefilm will never be the cultural revolution that the original film was and doesn't capture the same outlandish "gotcha" nature of it either, Cohen has succeeded in delivering Kazakhstan's greatest export back to America in a time where we need him the most. It's a film where both Mike Pence and Rudy Giuliani look like the fools they are, and for that we gloriously thank Sacha Baron Cohen. "Wa wa wee wa", indeed.

7/10