You may have heard that the world’s favourite Kazakh is back – can he pull it off again?
BORAT: SUBSEQUENT MOVIEFILM
(Dir: Jason Wohliner | Time: 1h36mins | Prime Video)
You have to hand it to Sacha Baron Cohen.
After the success of the first Borat movie blew his mankini-ed cover, he still managed to find more victims – and to dissect them even more incisively – on the brilliant TV series Who Is America?
His new characters got Dick Cheney to sign a waterboarding kit, but didn’t spare liberals either.
Now, 14 years after the first film, Cohen has resurrected the bumbling Kazakh reporter to bring an October surprise that’s both hilarious and on-point.
It comes on the back of an excellent performance in the politically-charged The Trial of the Chicago 7 and his emergence – out of character – as a voice against the spread of anti-semitism. Both of those dovetail perfectly into Borat’s latest adventure.
A riotous start clears up any doubts as to whether we wanted to see the mustachioed buffoon again. The rest of the film perhaps proves that we needed to see him again.
We find a bedraggled Borat smashing rocks in a gulag, after his exploits in the first film brought embarassment to Kazakhstan – and the collapse of pubis exports.
In a briefing with his president, he finds out that “US and A was ruin by an evil man who stood against all American values. His name? Barack Obama.”
But the arrival of “magnificient new premier McDonald Trump” gives them the chance to mend relations between the countries and for Borat to redeem himself.
His new mission is to deliver a bribe to vice president – and “famous ladies’ man” – Mikhael Pence. The gift: his daughter Tutar, played with Cohen-esque commitment by Maria Bakalova.
She is excited to follow in the footsteps of her favourite cartoon princess, the “lowly peasant girl called Melania, from shithole country Slovenia”.
It’s a wonderful set up for the ample comedic opportunities created by the current administration.
As with the first Borat movie, scripted scenes create a framework for various set pieces with apparently unknowing victims. This time around there is a better marriage of the two, no doubt helped by years of additional experience for Cohen and his guerilla team.
The narrative stretches bring belly laughs that rival the gotchas and also give an opportunity for the characters to evolve – while remaining ridiculous, of course.
As Torta discovers that the morbidly chauvinistic “Daughter Owner’s Manual” she has been following religiously is full of lies, she becomes empowered. Meanwhile, Borat himself learns a few choice progressive lessons.
On arrival in the US, he quickly finds out he is too well-known and decides to deploy various costumes, the new characters lending a bit of variety to the shtick.
As the father-daughter team travel around the country to put their plan into action, they find plenty of examples of rampant ignorance. But while those are squeezed for every last drop, the film also finds clever ways to show there is a lot of good out there too.
Rather than lash out at the grotesque caricatures they are presented with, some of the kind-hearted victims take time out to try to understand and affect change.
And while the film’s final stunt – which sadly but not surprisingly has been spoilered by news headlines – is a massive get, perhaps the most memorable spoof takes place earlier in the movie.
After losing his daughter, Borat convinces two conspiracy theory-spouting, Trump-loving rednecks to host him during the early covid lockdown. For that stunt, Cohen apparently spent five days with them, in character.
The pair tell him the “extremely evil” Clintons are responsible for the outbreak and that they drink the blood of children.
Instead of just humiliating them, the film also shows them as caring towards this bizarre foreigner as they cluelessly but touchingly try to reunite him with Torta.
But this still being Borat, he ‘tricks’ them and the rest of the crowd at a rightwing rally to gleefully sing about injecting Dr Fauci with “the Wuhan flu” and chopping up journalists “like the Saudis do”.
As ever, there are a few situations that may go too far for some and may cause others to wonder how much is true.
The final set-piece you may have read about, however, is unimpeachable – pun intended. Timed to perfection to influence the news cycle just days before the elections, it is a sensational cross over from fiction into our headlines that proves again our reality is as crazy as Borat’s.
Subsequent Moviefilm is a much needed laugh despite of – and at the expense of – these troubled times.
Verdict: Ambitious, cunning and hilarious – Sacha Baron Cohen has undoubtedly pulled it off again. 8/10
MS