Borat’s Kazakhstan: Now just like America!
There’s a piece in today’s New York Times about a $30 million lawsuit that’s been lodged against the producers of Borat for misrepresenting the plight of the so-called people of Kazakhstan.
    In his hit mockumentary, Borat Sagdiyev (aka Sacha Baron Cohen) welcomes audiences to his hometown in Kazakhstan, where he introduces his friends, neighbors, the town rapist, his wife and sister (who incidentally is Kazakhstan’s third ranked prostitute). Borat claims his countrymen’s favorite pastimes include shooting bears, gypsy catching, rape, wrestling and ping pong.
    Now there is a new sport to add to the list, it's America's favorite pastime, malicious lawsuits. This one doesn’t come from the Kazakhs, they were far too smart to let Borat anywhere near their borders with a camera crew. That said, a lot of Americans invited Borat, camera crew in tow, into their lives. How smart was that?
     Now Romanians are pretty dumb, most of my relatives (who are native Hungarians) assure me of this. My favorite uncle was born in Romania and he achieved top ranking in the Romanian IQ test. You stay – you’re an idiot. You leave – you have genius level IQ.
    In fairness, when he was born in Transylvania (true story) it was part of Hungary so he is ethnically Hungarian.
    That said, even Romanian gypsies are smart enough to tell the difference between a BBC documentary film crew and an outlandish comedian masquerading as Kazakhstan’s sixth most popular personality. But what the hell, everybody deserves a crack at the big time. So there’s nothing more American than coming to America and suing an American company.
   I don’t like the Romanian’s chances of tipping the scales of justice their way — can’t hurt trying.
    How did this little film with a small budget and a very clever marketing campaign, no doubt principally devised by Borat himself, pull in such big numbers at the US Box Office? It’s taken well over $100 million in the US alone — and will surely pull similar numbers internationally with Borat’s huge UK following. 
     The US of A is essentially a very conservative society and Borat is a completely outrageous send-up of conservatism and, for that matter, political correctivism. The key to his success is that he offends everybody — particularly Jews, which bothers a lot of people who aren’t Jews. Borat (Cohen) is an observant Jew, which gives him carte blanche on Jewish gags no matter how outlandish — and his are.
     His accent is great and he never, even momentarily, slips out of it. And he spends most of his time speaking (what is intended to sound like) Kazakh with co-star, American-born, Ken Davitian who plays Borat’s producer. As best I can tell the two mainly speak in a combination of Yiddish and gibberish. I can’t speak a word of the former (well a couple choice words maybe) and I’m often accused of spouting out the latter.   
    Davitian’s character of Azamat Bagatov is really only a bit part, he rarely spouts any words in English but with Cohen produces possibly the most outrageous (and consequently funny) fight scene in cinematic history. I hate to say it but it's almost worth the price of admission alone.  
    It’s one thing to be a smart and funny Jew – which Cohen is. But to be a smart and funny Jew who’s understands, and can sell, a slapstick gag is bankable talent.
    Borat is like no feature motion picture you’ve ever seen . . . though it will spawn a few clones. As it’s a film like no other it’s probably worth seeing on the big screen. It's not really a motion picture and has no cinematic presence and is really nothing more than 90 minutes of TV comedy on celluloid. But it’s 90 minutes of very good TV comedy that shouldn’t wait to be seen on the small screen.
    Considering Cohen’s other big screen offering was his 2002 Ali-G Indahouse flick, which deserved the critical panning it received. To persevere with Borat is credit to the guy because plenty of doors would have slammed in his face courtesy of Ali-G’s box office.  
    Cohen was smart enough not to follow up the failure of Ali-G with an attempted sequel. And he’s probably too smart to follow up Borat’s huge success with a sequel either. He did plenty of media spots to pump Borat up – every one of them in character. He’s smart enough to give people what they want but not to give them everything. Once they’ve taken it all, there’s no reason to ask for more.