'Borat Subsequent Moviefilm' Review: Risking It All For A Bigger, Bolder Borat
Sacha Baron Cohen literally felt he was risking his life to make this long-awaited secret sequel.
It’s hard to see sometimes, but the brash and ribald comics are often the ones that people remember; Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, George Carlin and Sam Kinison told their style of comedy that was equal parts shock and truth. They challenged the world and our preconceived notions of what American culture is. They are the ones that create change.
So it shouldn’t come as a shock to say that Sacha Baron Cohen, and Borat is the microscope on American society we didn’t know we needed. In fact, we didn’t even know it was coming until it was revealed that Cohen had been filming in secret, and finished the film last month.
Now before my fellow ‘cinematic academics’ tear down the door and steal my ever-increasingly-prestigious film degree that made me the pretentious film connoisseur I am, it should be noted; I am not a particular fan of Cohen’s brand of comedy. I find he often goes too far with his jokes, and with a lot of them, the lowbrow nature appeasing only to the lowest common denominator. It just isn’t my particular sense of humor. As we know, however, comedy is objective, and so while I may not laugh all that much, I can’t help but think that 20, 30 even 40 years from now, the Borat films are going to be revered in the same light as Bruce, Pryor, Carlin or Kinison.
There was one thing I did find humorous in an ironic sort of way. The press release for “Borat Subsequent MovieFilm”, directly from Amazon asked that reviewers not spoil some of the larger surprises of the film (and I have no intention of doing so), but that did make me chuckle. Cohen and Borat live for large surprises, I would even go so far as to say Cohen has built his career on it with follow up films to Borat such as “Bruno” or “The Dictator”. Amazon themselves have created tremendously successful and entertaining original content with that very model, pushing the boundaries with creations such as “The Boys” or “Hunters”, and I could not be more supportive of content like that. Pushing the boundaries means entertainment never gets boring, and more importantly, it challenges people. In this sense, and many others, Cohen has proven he’s one of the most fiercely intelligent satirical minds of the 21st century. If he can’t inspire you with rousing well-thought out diatribes about the evils of Facebook, he can grab your attention with a shocking close up of a man’s phallus. Many, many times, in fact.
It has been 14 years since the first Borat took everyone by surprise. Like a giant phallus itself, it has become a film that still to this day that lives on in bad-impressions, overused quotes and memes. Yet that’s how you know you’ve reached the modern-day lexicon of culture, that middle-aged people and teenagers alike know who the character of Borat is. We discover what has become of Borat since his last adventure in the U.S. and A., and it hasn’t been all brightly colored slingshot man-kinis. Borat has shamed his home country of Kazakhstan, but has been told he can redeem himself by fixing the mistakes of the evil leader who has ruined America… Barack Obama. Sent on a new mission to create peace with the ‘Great Donald Trump’, Borat brings an offering to his orangeness to help redeem the Kazakhstan culture.
On his new adventure, Borat himself is in for a shock as his daughter, Sandra Jessica Parker Sagdiyev (played Irina Novak) has stowed away, and now Borat must begrudgingly bring his daughter along with him, treating her like livestock.
In a film that once again prides itself on shock value, the biggest shock is the aforementioned Novak, as she was absolutely brilliant. To comment on the ‘layered’ performance she gave is a shock in itself. She was sweet, funny, poignant, and to keep up with Sacha Baron Cohen in comedy, is akin to running track with Usain Bolt. I would have thought no one would keep up. Sometimes it’s a sequel trope that they bring in new characters to the franchise, and that often trop simply does not work. Yet the story between Borat and Sandra is the driving force of the film - it has a real heart to it, and sprinkled in between the abortion and period jokes is actual connection between the two comedic actors.
Sandra also brings a fine-tuned commentary on feminism with her presence, creating a more ‘woke’ Borat for the modern world, and this is where Borat 2 might get overlooked, the script is extremely topical. You might not expect there would be a large writing team on a film that seems so improvised, but the team of Peter Beynham, Jena Friedman, Anthony Hines, Lee Kern, Dan Mazer, Erica Rivinoja, Dan Swimer, and of course, Cohen knew exactly the commentaries they wanted to make. This is the crux of the film for me. While I may not have found the humor in denying the Holocaust (even jokingly) or the multiple, multiple phallus and vagine references, I appreciated the satire surrounding the Republican party, women’s rights and the COVID pandemic. Cohen knows that with the change that comedians like him creates, comes risk. He had said he felt he was personally in danger so many times while shooting, not only because of health concerns surround the pandemic, but what might happen pushing political buttons in public. Cohen reportedly wore a bullet-proof vest several times for some of the larger ‘stunts’ of the film. If that doesn’t earn your respect, regardless of personal sense of humor, what will?
I know people will find this film funny, and to each their own when it comes to comedy. I would never be such a phallus as to say something ‘isn’t funny’ when I know perfectly well, it’s funny to someone. The important thing is that Cohen continues to create his brand of comedy for those who enjoy it, that he continues push the boundaries and fills the cracks of a broken American with whatever single, double or triple entendre he wishes.