Movie Review: "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" (2006)

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Movie: "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan"
Director: Larry Charles
Year: 2006
Rating: R
Running Time: 1 hour, 24 minutes 

In order to help the struggling economy of Kazakhstan, local television personality Borat (Sasha Baron Cohen) is sent to America, along with his producer Azamat (Ken Davitian), to learn about and film a report on "the greatest country in the world." He is sent to New York to interview unsuspecting people about America and capture real reactions to his ridiculous persona. One night in a hotel, Borat catches a rerun of Baywatch and becomes totally infatuated with Pamela Anderson. He lies to his producer in order to take the production on the road to California to meet Pamela. During his trip, he gets into many crazy situations and continues to wreak havoc on trusting people, pushing their patience to the absolute limit.

This mockumentary is hilarious and beyond outrageous. Some might even call it downright offensive. Sasha Baron Cohen does with his Borat character what he has been famous for for years: annoying the crap out of unsuspecting people while pushing them to their absolute limits. For some reason, as an audience, BigJ and I found this quite entertaining. Most of the hilarity comes from people's perceived cultural differences between us (Americans) and Borat (Kazakhstanian? Kazakhstanish?). Because of these cultural differences, a lot of people are willing to let him get away with things that would normally get others punched in the face or thrown in jail overnight. There's no bones about it: Borat is racist, sexist, homophobic, and borderline demented, and this movie is DEFINITELY not for everyone, but we enjoy putting it on once every couple of years to remind ourselves not just how funnily offensive Baron Cohen can be, but how ridiculous people in our own country can be, too. This movie is definitely not safe for work or for kids or for anyone with a strong moral compass, and we realize many people find this movie stupid, but that's okay because we enjoy it.

My Rating: 8/10
BigJ's Rating: 7/10
IMDB's Rating: 7.3/10
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 95%
Do we recommend this movie: Yes!