I'm.a Borat fan, but more importantly I'm a Sacha Baron Cohen fan. I know he is divisive and that his brand of social satire is viewed as transgressive and cringeworthy by some -- but to me he's an incisive talent who picks targets that deserve his merciless ridicule.
That said, his new film -- despite the hype around it -- plays like a more lowkey, even sentimental version of the original. it's basically a father-daughter road movie (with the game and likable Maria Bakalova as Borat's teenage spawn Tutar).
It's impressive that he pulled this sequel off, considering how ubiquitous (and played out) the Borat character became in the 14 years since his big screen debut and that it appears to have been shot (at least partially) amid the outbreak of the coronavirus. Still, the shock of Cohen's style isn't really here (save for the now infamous sequence involving Rudy Giuliani) and the laughs are at times inconsistent.
And yet, I am so grateful for this film for its little pleasures: Like a hilarious, old school Disney-style animated film romanticizing Trump's relationship with Melania, a genuinely creepy sequence at a debutante ball or its capturing for posterity footage of Mike Pence crowing about how the Trump administration had the coronavirus under control back when there was only 15 cases.
The seams show when Cohen tries to make his vignettes string together like a coherent film (the same issue detracted a bit from his largely underrated Bruno). Ostensibly, the film is about Borat trying to offer his daughter first to Mike Pence and later Giuliani for sexual favors.
There are of course detours -- like an uncomfortable but ultimately quite sweet confrontation between Borat and a Jewish woman who attempts to cure him of his anti-Semitism (it's one of the miracles of Cohen's characterization that he makes such a heinous character likable) -- that offer little lowkey pleasures but can sometimes feel like a retread.
Ultimately I am a bit torn about the strength of the movie's comedy. I am happy he exposes and mocks Q'anon conspiracy theorists for instance, but when Borat (disguised as a MAGA guy) sings song about Obama being a traitor to rapturous applause it doesn't feel particularly revelatory.
Even the Giuliani scene -- is which the former NYC mayor looks unwell and rather silly (with his dyed scraps of hair) doesn't quite land the way you expect it to, partially because the insane things he's saying about the coronavirus being "manufactured" in China is the same thing he'd be saying to.a legit journalist.
In other words, we don't need Borat anymore to expose the hypocrisy and vapidity of many of these people behind closed doors because so many of them are willing to embrace hate and stupidity (which are really one and the same) in broad daylight without shame.
That doesn't mean this movie doesn't have its charms -- and it ends on a note that's probably a little too cute for some peoples' tastes, but which I found charming.
This feels like a hasty effort to stick to Trump while there's still time -- after all, it's looks increasingly likely that he won't be around for comics to kick around after January 20th. The thing is though, he is already sticking it to himself without anyone's help.
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