Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

I have seen the movie a few weeks ago, and i've just read a lot of the comments here... i see that a lot of you people think that this movie is anti-semitic. you've got it all wrong,sorry. Cohen is presenting us a fool and naive -and i don't know what else- character, who thinks that the so nice Jewish couple has turned into bugs and try to poison him with a sandwich, so he bribes them with money to leave him alone... come on guys? Cohen (who, by the way is a Jew himself) is obviously m a k i n g f u n o f anti semitism, or at least he is trying to... he wants to show how unreasonable the hate or fear of the Jews is... I agree with that, cause i don't have anything against Jews or Americans or kazakhs or anyone for all that matters. But i do think that Cohen should leave this job for someone who is not a Jew, (so it would be less of a propaganda) or at least, for someone with the basic sense of humor...i don't think that the view of Borat making a fool of himself(at most times) or making fool of others(at some times), with gags based on ,e.g, the nudity of his over sized partner is funny in any way... how much did this movie cost, i wonder? ten bucks? a hundred? a million? i do not know. all i know is how much better would this world be if all this money could be invested on something else, like the help of hungry, sick , orphan kids dying every day around the world, instead of being wasted in the making of such garbage...

The laughter is genuine even when I was appalled at what I was laughing at. Is Sacha Baron Cohen a genius of sorts or the biggest smart ass to hit the screens in a long, very long time? He makes John Waters appear like an (old) Disney product. The nastiness works because it is immediately recognizable and his targets live next door if not with me between my four walls. It is a social-horror-documentary. The three guys talking about women between beer and beer was so horribly real that I wanted to leave the theater laughing and screaming at the same time. Borat is not tender about his own background either. He is an equal opportunity offender if I ever saw one. The world is a cesspool and nobody is immune. Even his innocence is corrupt. I've been considering seeing it again, as the whole thing in one single disgusting lump was too much to take but I'm not sure I want to. I'll wait for the DVD where I'll be able to select and discard. My only question is now, what will Sacha Baron Cohen do for an encore.

As far as mockumentary films go, Borat (2006) is at least in the top five. It may have not been as groundbreaking as This Is Spinal Tap (1984), but its use of real people's reactions to a parody of Eastern European stereotypes still shocks today. Perhaps having experienced some of the American sub-cultures that were mocked is what makes those parts of this film funny to me. It certainly has its gross-out moments, but Sacha Baron Cohen's performance is iconic.

I think what makes Borat one of the best mockumentary films is its unscripted nature. Sure, they wrote Borat's dialogue in such a way as to provoke people (or get them to open up about their own racism/sexism/homophobia). However, the responses from these people feel completely genuine. The ones who accept Sacha Baron Cohen's bit and try to play their part straight are perhaps the funniest moments in the movie. Plus, I don't know if I can trust ice cream trucks after watching this.

While a lot of this movie is funny, the sexual and scatological jokes haven't aged that well. I never cared for the extended sequence of two naked men wrestling through a hotel when I watched this movie the first time, anyway. For such a short film, some sequences seem to go on a bit too long past the point of being funny. I wonder if they just left the camera rolling long enough for these people to incriminate themselves and didn't want to cut anything from that footage. At any rate, this mockumentary borders on an unflinching documentary of cringe-worthy American sub-cultures. And if we can't laugh at ourselves, then maybe we're taking a movie like Borat too seriously.

An unscripted mockumentary that ranks in the best of the genre, I give Borat 4.0 stars out of 5.

In terms of pure unadulterated cringe-worthiness, this film just about outshines them all. It is brilliant, horrific, hilarious, sad, outrageous, revealing, and incredibly clever. It shows up people's narrow-mindedness, their racism, their inability to accept or understand different cultures. It makes me scared for the future of the world, and delighted that someone actually sees most people for what they really are - blinkered and uneducated.

Go and rent it, and enjoy. It will make you want to be a better person, make you laugh until you almost cry, and undoubtedly make you hide behind a cushion at times.

Sacha Baron-Cohen is a genius. A definite 10 out of 10.

Wonderfull movie. You laugh until you cry. A perfect portrait of american culture.