All of the sketches are gotten through quickly, so the jokes never get old. The one thread in the film is that Borat’s ugly wife dies, not long after Borat sees a Baywatch rerun, and falls in love with Pamela Anderson, whom he decides to sexually pursue cross country.
Along with him, in a used ice cream truck they buy, is an unseen Kazakh cameraman and the film’s producer, Azamat Bagatov (Ken Davitian). Other than Cohen and Davitian, the only other real actors in the film are Anderson, who makes a late cameo when Borat literally tries to bag her, and a black woman named Luenell, who plays a prostitute Borat ends up marrying.
Through it all, a number of misadventures occur, such as a test of etiquette lessons at a dinner party with Southern white racists, learning cultural tips from black gangstas in a Southern hood, rodeo goers who display an immense amount of cowboy xenophobia, slavery loving frat boys who pick Borat up in the desert and show him a Pamela Anderson porno tape to dispirit him, and Pentecostalists who speak in tongues, who teach him the power of Mr. Jesus.
But, bar none, the funniest scene in the film comes when Borat leaves a hotel bathroom, and finds Azamat jerking off to his magazine. The two engage in a naked fight that ends up with Azamat pouncing on Borat in a 69 position, and the two of them running naked through the hotel, until tackled and asked to leave. This is what separates the two men, and sends Borat into the desert. Ultimately, he loses Pamela Anderson - whom he never had - and marries Luenell, and reports that life back in Kazakhstan is better than before.
The Twentieth Century Fox DVD has an old Soviet era film feel to it, replete with badly worn looking film stock and Cyrillic lettering, and poor English translations of the gibberish Kazakh language. It has no audio commentary, but has some cool deleted scenes, although it was a good decision to excise them, especially a long and tedious (although funny) supermarket scene. There are also faux commercials: a music infomercial for the movie’s soundtrack, a Kazakh Baywatch spoof called Sexydrownwatch, and an interesting compendium of the worldwide publicity tour for the film, including some late night TV appearances with Cohen in character as Borat.
One of the more interesting sidelights of researching this film was seeing how many people who appeared, and signed waivers, tried to sue the filmmakers (including director Larry Charles). This includes the nation of Kazakhstan and a group representing Gypsies, who claim their town was defamed and presented in a bad light, for Cohen shot that portion of the film in Romania.
Article comments
1 - Jordan Richardson
One of my favourite comedies ever. Thanks for revisiting this.