borat: funny or frightening?

finally saw the film. what a trip. spoilers below.

in one scene, borat enters a pentecostal church in mississippi, and one of the speakers, the chief justice of the mississippi supreme court james w. smith, jr. shouts from the pulpit that america was once a "christian nation" and that it will once again become a "christian nation," to the hearty applause of the sizeable congregation. later in the service, men in suits are seen breaking down, speaking in tongues, and dancing around like headless chickens. borat walks to the stage to "be saved," grabs the mic and asks the congregation if "jesus will heal the pain in his heart" (pain caused by discovering that his crush pamela anderson was not a virgin - which was acted out in an equally disturbing scene where drunken frat boys from south carolina lament the end of slavery and wish that women were subservient). the congregation shouts "YES!" and as several influential political and religious leaders hold their hands over his head, borat starts convulsing and pretends to speak in tongues.

yep, america is a silly place.

my fiancee didn't like it very much, calling the film more sad than funny. and the humor "dumb." i have a feeling that sacha baron cohen had trouble finding truly rotten specimens, as about half of his "victims" were friendly and patient, and some had to be pushed to the edge for a response. note: anyone faced with a bag of shit at the dinner table would opt to kick the presenter of shit out of her house! that's a given. nothing clever there.

and the interview with alan keyes could have produced some choice nuggets of mr. keyes' intensely homophobic views, but his response to borat's faux narrative about being accosted by homosexuals was cut short.

and the over-the-top portrayals by borat on the topic of anti-semitism could have been sharper by juxtaposing those scenes (such as the one in the bed and breakfast where borat believes the elderly jewish couple has magical "shape shifting" abilities and is trying to poison him) immediately after eliciting ridiculously paranoid remarks by interviewing random anti-semitic psychos. see, e.g., a scene from the ali g show baron cohen does as "bruno" (skip to the "pro-american rally" section):



instead, borat's wild and unchecked portrayal of anti-semitism seems forced and out of place.

often, the film descends into gratuitous jackass-style humor, such as the naked romp through the hotel with his hairy and portly "assistant." another attempt at physical humor, such as the "accidental" trashing of the confederate civil war memorabilia shop could be considered somewhat pointed and subversive simply because the store sold confederate memorabilia (and the storeowner mentioned earlier that the confederate flags were part of his fine "heritage"), but come on... besides the vague feeling of schadenfreude of seeing confederate memorabilia destroyed, ho hum.

in short, fresh outlook and valiant attempt. the ratings of the film are a bit generous (92% at rottentomatoes.com), but i would still recommend it.

3.5/5