Posted by Johnnymac 11:45 AM
So Mrs Johnnymac and I went to see Borat on Friday night and I must say that both of us didn't particularly care for the movie. I don't want to say that I was disappointed, but I was. And it's not that I don't like Sacha Baron Cohen - for the most part I love Ali G (especially bits like the Veteran/Veterinarian on the farm) and Borat on TV - but the movie just seemed really lacking and in the end I was underwhelmed. I think there are two reasons for this: 1.) the backstory was clunky and really took away from the humor of the too-brief candid segments and 2.) all of the gags mostly ended up as opportunities for crude bathroom humor and were much less sophisticated and cerebral than the jokes on TV.

The Borat character is meant to be a parody of an Eastern European weirdo, but the joke itself is satire of everyday American life - you don't go to a matchmaker and say you want to find a nice woman with big boobs for "sexy time", nor do you go door-to-door with a candidate for Congress and compare him to Stalin and laugh at women having the right to vote. That's satire and the premise of Borat makes it work on TV. But the movie is mostly about Borat the parody, in fact, it's more like a parody of the parody, and the whole thing falls flat, because Borat himself isn't funny. What's funny is what he does.

Yes, there were funny parts in the movie: the interview with the feminists was good, the driving instructor was quite funny, and the scene with Borat being terrified the tottering elderly jewish couple was a great idea, but Borat as a fictional character in a gross-out movie was decidedly different and harder to laugh at than Borat as a premise for acting silly and getting people to react. Most of the movie just felt like a contrived excuse for scatalogical jokes and attempts to shock and anger people. Why did everything have to revolve around bodily functions and naked penises? That's not witty, that's lazy.

So I will disagree with Mark and say it's not worth the money. My advice is to wait for it to come on HBO and then Tivo the movie and fast forward to the funny parts, which when you think about it, is what the Ali G show already does, right?

2 Comment(s):

Posted by  Junelli, at 11:42 AM, November 14, 2006  

You have to admit that the Southern Dinner Party was pretty good!

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Posted by  Johnnymac, at 9:03 PM, November 14, 2006  

Right up to the bathroom joke, yeah...

"I am retired!"

"Like my brother!"

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