My Saturday Night With Borat...

So I got swept in the hype of what appears to be the flash point of a somewhat startling cultural phenomenon and succumbed to an opening weekend viewing of the film featuring everyone’s favorite Eurasian, Borat Sagdiyev (thanks to the extra-late screening at the Richmond St. Famous Players). Sasha Baron Cohen, the man behind Borat (and Ali G, for the cave-dwellers) follows that familiar premise of taking an outlandish culturally-backward fish out of water and throwing him, for comedy’s sake, at the unfamiliar superiority complex-possessing Westerner: in this case, the ig’nant American. Of course, the inside joke with the audience is quickly established by the comedic depiction of his homeland and I’ll just add that I don’t know what Kazakhstan did to Mr. Cohen, but to paraphrase, wa wa wi wa.

So off to America does Borat go and wreck havoc on the unsuspecting. The plot, itself, has everything to do with the journey, as the destination is of little significance, other than to bring about an odd cameo by Pam Anderson. What is amazing is how the actor is able to keep himself from getting lynched during the journey. All the credit goes to Cohen for remaining in character to such an intense degree, and it is this believability of his comical facade that must, literally, keep him alive at times.

This, essentially, is the movie: if you enjoy the shtick, you’ll love it. But while the modus operandi is clearly established, it is the wealth of material for parody in the U.S. that makes this movie go. Cohen identifies the well, and then goes to it often (cough...the SOUTH…cough…). Unsurprisingly, it seems the least prompted (although you can never really tell with the obvious reliance on editing for coherence and believability) exchanges provide the most comedic gold: the encounter with the most generic frat boys ever created, was predictable to anyone who has spent any time in the last decade on a university campus. However, the apparent unsolicited but, uh, well-intentioned advice of a rodeo organizer was shockingly hilarious unscripted genius right down to the ‘I-talian’ and ‘MOS-lum’ references.

Basically, this is what it comes down to – do you enjoy seeing this character repeatedly spring into action and, at times, savage his victims (i.e. the woman who booked him on what was a mayhem-plagued local newscast was subsequently fired…so much for research…). I have to admit, I found myself wandering at times, trying to predict how he would offend next or questioning the nature of the pre-scripting. And when the resultant punch lines were realized, I often became almost squeamish at the behaviour of the unwitting co-stars or the less than flattering editing used to create the effect. Maybe I’m just getting old. Or maybe my faith in humanity is a little more idealistically based…but then again, I thought the Game should have never been allowed to use ‘One Blood’ as a cut-up sonic backdrop for studio gangsterisms.

Apparently if you don’t see this movie, you will be left in the dust of all that is happening in the realm of pop culture. And if your peoples are particularly ravenous over Cohen’s fair, you probably won’t really understand the punch lines to group jokes for at least a month or two.

So to see this flick, you certainly don’t need to have any familiarity with his past material or know he’s a devout Jew (well, maybe that’ll help with the anti-Semitic bits) that has provoked the ire of the Anti Defamation League or have even looked at Mahir Cagri’s web site (google him and lo, you will find inspiration). Just know that Cohen will, no doubt, have to lay Borat to bed and that this last hurrah was a worthwhile send-off. And that you will be responsible for making this man PAID (mockumentaries are cheap to make…insert faith-based wealth-acquiring stereotype dig here). But don’t worry, he’s got another character, Bruno, who is waiting in the wings to ravage the fashion industry (easy and necessary target) and he shouldn’t disappoint. The question really is how much do fashion peoples really care about their image?