Borat (2006)
Aug. 28th, 2021 02:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerLast weekend I finally watched the Borat movie from 2006. Long story short: What a crummy movie.
In my head I've composed reviews of this movie that would probably extend past 1,000 words when written. Yeah, that's long, though since the full title of the movie, "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan", is way longer than most (it's 12 words when most American movie titles are 3 or less) I feel like I should get to go long, too. But giving this fetid turd of a film that much room in my head seems like the wrong thing to do. So I'll explain my poor rating in under 200 words.
I love comedy. I also love dark comedy. I note that because that's what I expected Borat to be: a dark comedy in why a sly comedian portrays a ridiculous character to catch unsuspecting people, including some public figures, saying very embarrassing things about themselves and their beliefs. Call it Candid Camera if Allen Funt were really devious... and didn't have network censors.
Instead of a dark-comedy version of Candid Camera what Borat delivers is... 1 hour 24 minutes of poop jokes, misogyny, and anti-Semitic gags by a comedian who plays mean-spirited pranks on normal people and seems to want more than anything else to show his penis on camera as much as possible. Cohen isn't funny for more than scattered moments here and there in this movie. The rest of the time he's just being an asshole to real people whose peace and quiet he invades with a film crew. And his dick.
As I write this I recall a scene in which Cohen purports to offer an unsuspecting person a bag of his own feces. That's a good metaphor for the entire movie. It's a sack of turds.
In my head I've composed reviews of this movie that would probably extend past 1,000 words when written. Yeah, that's long, though since the full title of the movie, "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan", is way longer than most (it's 12 words when most American movie titles are 3 or less) I feel like I should get to go long, too. But giving this fetid turd of a film that much room in my head seems like the wrong thing to do. So I'll explain my poor rating in under 200 words.
Expectations vs. Reality
I've wanted to see Borat since it hit theaters in 2006. Friends said it was great and that Sacha Baron Cohen— the film's writer, producer, and star— is a brilliant comedian. I took them at their word.I love comedy. I also love dark comedy. I note that because that's what I expected Borat to be: a dark comedy in why a sly comedian portrays a ridiculous character to catch unsuspecting people, including some public figures, saying very embarrassing things about themselves and their beliefs. Call it Candid Camera if Allen Funt were really devious... and didn't have network censors.
Instead of a dark-comedy version of Candid Camera what Borat delivers is... 1 hour 24 minutes of poop jokes, misogyny, and anti-Semitic gags by a comedian who plays mean-spirited pranks on normal people and seems to want more than anything else to show his penis on camera as much as possible. Cohen isn't funny for more than scattered moments here and there in this movie. The rest of the time he's just being an asshole to real people whose peace and quiet he invades with a film crew. And his dick.
As I write this I recall a scene in which Cohen purports to offer an unsuspecting person a bag of his own feces. That's a good metaphor for the entire movie. It's a sack of turds.
