There is no reason a Borat sequel should work.
It comes 14 years after the surprise original — a lifetime and a half in movie metrics. Borat’s fish-out-of-water schtick should be a one-trick pony, just as SNL films are glorified sketch jokes. And everybody should know Sacha Baron Cohen’s chameleon mug by now; he’s already punked Sarah Palin, Dick Cheney and a raft of unwitting stars, TV reporters and dim bulb politicians. His goose should be cooked by now.
And yet, Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm is a small wonder. While not the seismic discovery of the 2006 original — and what could be? — the follow-up is laugh-out-loud funny, surprisingly touching and still remarkable in its ability to get citizens, particularly elected ones, to act like asses for the camera.
Or, in Rudy Giuliani’s case, like a child molester.
Like the first film, the sublime Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, the sequel has a knock-knock joke simplicity. Cohen plays a correspondent and unofficial statesman from Kazakhstan, and he uses the ruse to get America to drop its guard and describe itself, assworts and all.
Cohen takes a bead on some of his favorite targets: gun rights advocates, evangelicals, and just about any country bumpkin willing to sign a rights waiver. And there are a lot.
But it’s the politicians who always make the best bait (Palin was skewered on Cohen’s Showtime series, Who Is America?) This time around, Giuliani is in the crosshairs. and Cohen nails him the way Bob Woodward nailed Donald Trump in Rage.
Actually, exactly like that. If you remember, this site criticized Woodward for saving a news story about the president’s COVID subterfuge to help sell his book. Here, the stakes aren’t nearly as high, and Cohen rightly used the scene for the, ahem, climax of the film. But Cohen could have made news with the footage alone — if it’s legit.
The scene begins with Giuliani seated on a couch, answering questions from Borat’s “daughter,” an adult actress playing a 15-year-old. When the actress asks the former mayor if they can continue their discussion in the bedroom. he agrees, and is then shown sitting on a bed, as she appears to take his microphone off and he appears to pat her. The segment then cuts to the image of Rudy, reclining on the bed, placing his hands down his pants. Borat then bursts into the scene, screaming “She’s 15-years-old! She’s too old for you!”
Giuliani has vociferously denied any wrongdoing, and accuses the filmmakers of doctoring the scene, which may be true. This is, after all, a feature film.
But Cohen strikes a documentary-like chord every time he turns on a camera, and Moviefilm is gloriously no exception. Perhaps the film’s biggest surprise is its tenderness. Namely, Jeanise Jones, an African-American babysitter who is stunned and offended when Borat instructs Jones to feed his daughter water from a dog bowl if she’s been a good girl. Jones ultimately gives the daughter a sincere, near-tearjerker about the girl standing up for — and finding pride in — her unpolished self.
There’s nothing new or earthshaking to Moviefilm. It is, after all, a direct-to-Amazon sequel, and you probably got it free with your order of bulk paper towels.
But given the year, the disappointment of $250 million movies like Tenet, and our junk food overload on crap like Tiger King, Borat couldn’t be more timely or welcome. He addresses everything from COVID to religion to gender roles in an hour and a half that seem to time warp by.
Very niiiice.
