Borat (2006)

It’s niiiiiiice. It seems like Napoleon Dynamite impressions are being replaced by Borat impression, and this can only be for the better. I say this without a hint of sarcasm — Sacha Baron Cohen should have been nominated for Best Actor. He is simply brilliant as he stays in character through every second of a road trip through America, running across all sorts of people and turning them into unwitting co-writers. Cohen’s film succeeds both as a pee-your-pants funny outrageous crude comedy but also as a socio-political examination on bigotry and tolerance in America. What makes so Borat so loveable is how innocent Cohen makes him seem even when he’s spouting racist, sexist, inflammatory ignorance. It’s amazing that people will buy his whopping tales of life in Kazakhstan because we as a nation have a willful ignorance about world culture. The scripted bits stand out like a conclusion with Pamela Anderson, but it’s still amazing they worked out as cohesive a story as they did for this movie. Borat is the best comedy of the year, hairy naked man wrestling and all.

Nate?s Grade: B+

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About natezoebl

One man. Many movies. I am a cinephile (which spell-check suggests should really be "epinephine"). I was told that a passion for movies was in his blood since I was conceived at a movie convention. While scientifically questionable, I do remember a childhood where I would wake up Saturday mornings, bounce on my parents' bed, and watch Siskel and Ebert's syndicated TV show. That doesn't seem normal. At age 17, I began writing movie reviews and have been unable to stop ever since. I was the co-founder and chief editor at PictureShowPundits.com (2007-2014) and now write freelance. I have over 1400 written film reviews to my name and counting. I am also a proud member of the Central Ohio Film Critics Association (COFCA) since 2012. In my (dwindling) free time, I like to write uncontrollably. I wrote a theatrical genre mash-up adaptation titled "Our Town... Attacked by Zombies" that was staged at my alma mater, Capital University in the fall of 2010 with minimal causalities and zero lawsuits. I have also written or co-written sixteen screenplays and pilots, with one of those scripts reviewed on industry blog Script Shadow. Thanks to the positive exposure, I am now also dipping my toes into the very industry I've been obsessed over since I was yea-high to whatever people are yea-high to in comparisons.

Posted on January 18, 2007, in 2006 Movies and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment.

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