Borat - Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit...

Buy This Item Borat - Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit... by 20th Century Fox  Available from Amazon  $10.49  on 9-23-2008     Sacha Baron Cohen 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. Reader Reviews When I told the cashier that I'd like two tickets to Borat, he told me that if I could name the other two characters that Sacha Baron Cohen plays, my girlfriend and I could attend the film for free. I easily named Bruno and struggled to name the obvious, Ali G, and I got my free tickets. Let me begin by saying that I "get" this film. Cohen's anthropological project is not lost on me. I understand that Borat is a deconstructive mirror of American culture, but I do not understand how this is a new and funny idea. It's been done before in everything from Henry James' novel The American to Eddie Murphy's film "Coming to America." But I could forgive the unoriginality of the film if it could make me laugh. Sadly, the laughs were few. I spent most of my time wondering how the film was produced. It would have been better if there wasn't an attempt at an enduring plot, but rather an episodic plotting of American ignorance. And where the film could have delivered funny commentary (say, a consistent kind of reporting back to Kazakhstan about how Americans do this or that), it instead went for Jackass-style embarrassment of real people. Since this kind of "humor" clogs all contemporary media, I feel desensitized and therefore disinterested in it. But really, I shouldn't be reviewing this film. I'm not of the intended audience. It was made for those who had a political awakening at a younger age than me. What seems boring and immature to me might actually tickle the funny bone of my younger siblings and my students. That's what getting old does to you. It separates you from the younger generation. The decision is to either embrace or reject this inevitability. Perhaps some people will think I'm "looking too deeply" into this movie and expecting too much of it. If that's true, let's not pretend that this is the greatest comedy ever. In the end, I didn't get much out of this film. What I did learn is that I have finally started getting old. I'm glad that I can go to a movie like Borat and be unable to enjoy its mediocrity. Most importantly, I'm glad that I didn't waste $17 on tickets.

Borat - Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit... Available from Amazon Price: $10.49 Updated on 9-23-2008.

SPONSORED LINKS