Cohen is a one-man-army of prodding laughs and ingenious performance art
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006)
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Reviews Counted:204
Fresh:186
Rotten:18
Average Rating:8/10
Consensus: Jagshemash! Borat gets high-fives almost all-around for being offensive in the funniest possible way. Part satire, part shockumentary, Borat stars Sacha Baron Cohen as the gleefully sexist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic title character on a cross-country trek to learn more about our strange nation; along the way he dredges up the seamy underbelly of American prejudice and ignorance. Now the cat is out of the bag, what will Cohen do for an encore?
Rated: 15 [See Full Rating] for pervasive strong crude and sexual content including graphic nudity, and language
Runtime: 86 mins
Genre: Comedies
Theatrical Release:02-11-2006
Synopsis: Jagshemash! Sacha Baron Cohen, the star and creator of HBO's "Da Ali G Show," brings his Kazakh journalist character Borat Sagdiyev to the big screen for the first time. Leaving his native... Jagshemash! Sacha Baron Cohen, the star and creator of HBO's "Da Ali G Show," brings his Kazakh journalist character Borat Sagdiyev to the big screen for the first time. Leaving his native Kazakhstan, Borat travels to America to make a documentary. As he zigzags across the nation, Borat meets real people in real situations with hysterical consequences. His backwards behavior generates strong reactions around him, exposing prejudices and hypocrisies in American culture. In some cases, Borat's interview subjects embrace his outrageous views on race and sex by agreeing with him, while others attempt to offer a patriotic lesson in Western values. Wa-wa-wee-wa! Hilarious. Jaw-dropping. Inflammatory. Dangerous. Subversive. Borat, a satirical Kazakh journalist caricature invented and portrayed by Sacha Baron Cohen, has been called all this – and more. Borat became a phenomenon in the U.K. with the comedy series "Da Ali G Show," in which Baron Cohen's outlandish humor and razor-sharp satire on anti-Semitism, misogyny and racism, came to life through his creation's bizarre behavior and interviews. Baron Cohen's innovative and unique work has brought him two BAFTA awards. "Da Ali G Show" was a worldwide phenomenon, and Baron Cohen is the only person to twice host the European MTV Awards. Dictionaries added two words based on his characters' "inventive" use of the English language, and even the Queen Mother was a fan. In addition, Baron Cohen received critical plaudits for his role opposite Will Ferrell in this summer's blockbuster comedy "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby." Also, Baron Cohen was the voice of the King of the Lemurs in "Madagascar." Even before its release, critics heralded BORAT: CULTURAL LEARNINGS OF AMERICA FOR MAKE BENEFIT GLORIOUS NATION OF KAZAKHSTAN as one of the funniest pictures of all time, and it became the highest-rated comedy on the Internet Movie Database (IMDB.com). The film's humor and acclaim stem from its comedy "dream team": Sacha Baron Cohen, Larry Charles from "Seinfeld" and Jay Roach, director of the "Austin Powers" films. Baron Cohen and Roach are the film's producers, with Charles serving as director. The production of BORAT – as one might expect about a project centered on the character – was unlike any other. Baron Cohen, whose commitment to the role is unwaveringly intense, stayed in character through the shooting, and elected to conduct publicity and interviews promoting the picture, as Borat. --© 20th Century Fox [More]
Starring: Sacha Baron Cohen, Pamela Anderson, Ken Davitian
Starring: Sacha Baron Cohen, Pamela Anderson, Ken Davitian
Director: Larry Charles
Director: Larry Charles
Producer: Jay Roach
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Reviews for Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make...
...Sacha Baron Cohen clearly has the biggest comedic cojones in the industry today and his movie is brilliant.
I laughed a great deal, but I cringed almost as much -- and as a result, Borat and I may never be great friends.
Borat may be dangerous to abdominal health; there must be a limit to how many convulsions a belly can take without trauma.
It's offensively funny in places but it can't sustain itself for a feature length running time and it's not nearly as clever or as fun as it should be.
You will laugh at Borat, you really will, but the laughter will sometimes stick in your throat.
Borat is the funniest film of the year. The only ones not laughing are the ones the joke was on in the first place.
Cohen has updated the art of racial satire for a new, troubled world, and Borat is its king.
The fact that this mercilessly funny film is based in reality makes a bigger statement about who we are as a country. How we react seeing it reflected back at us will be another experience entirely.
The brilliance of Borat is that its comedy is as pitiless as its social satire, and as brainy.
It's sexually explicit, slyly slanderous, taking satiric aim at the simplistic absurdity of superstition and bigotry - in all forms.
Its best jokes approach some savage, atavistic core of cultural taboo and make the viewer wonder: Is it really possible to laugh at this? But by the time you formulate that question, it's too late: You're already laughing.
A perfect combination of slapstick and satire that manages to appeal to our basest common denominators while brilliantly skewering racism, anti-Semitism, sexism and that peculiarly American affliction: we're-number-one-ism.
In between Borat's arrival in New York City and the end of his epic quest are some of the most fearless acts of transgressive comedy in years.
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan is one of the funniest and most extreme movies of the past several years. If you're a fan of comedies, you'll have a blast here.
Conceptually brilliant and fearlessly executed, it rewrites the rules of screen comedy, presenting something never before seen on film: a gene-splice of Andy Kaufman's high-wire character humor and caught-on-the-street pranks from Punk'd.
The trailer makes Borat seem like a harmless farce, but the movie is among the most offensive ever made. And among the funniest.
Hold the hyperbole...isn't a work of genius, just a cable comedy sketch with some sharply funny bits but overextended, needlessly crude and ultimately...smug.
Latest News for Borat: Cultural Learnings of America...
June 18, 2008:
Bruno Gets a Release Date ![]()
Universal has found a spot for Sacha Baron Cohen's Bruno on the release schedule, slotting it against Angels & Demons on May 15, 2009. More...
April 07, 2008:
Bill Maher Gets A Religulous New Poster ![]()
Noted politically incorrect television host and out of the closet atheist Bill Maher may be the new Borat. Or something like it. He's making a movie with Larry Charles, one of... More...
March 31, 2008:
Sacha Baron Cohen's Bruno Goes to Kansas
Just a few short years after baffling and enraging Middle Americans with Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen is back...as Bruno. More...
March 04, 2008:
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It may not have been quite the box-office phenomenon that its predecessors were -- and critics may have disliked it enough to keep it down at 20 percent on the Tomatometer --... More...
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