‘Borat’ mixes offense, entertainment

Commercial and, stunningly, critical success “Borat” opened this weekend. The comedy from director Larry Charles stars Sacha Baron Cohen as the title character.

“Borat,” short for “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” centers on Kazakhstan television personality Borat Sagdiyev, who has been commissioned to fly to New York to report on the United States. Aided by crewmember and compatriot, Azamat Bagatov (Ken Davitian), Borat hopes to garner advice and life lessons from America that can aid his home, Kazakhstan.

The mission becomes convoluted when Borat becomes enraptured by Pamela Anderson during Baywatch reruns and falls in love with her. He wishes to go from New York to California to find his love and marry her, all the while encountering (and mercilessly offending) various groups of people.

It truly is amazing how many different groups of people this film manages to offend in only 82 minutes of run time. Christians, Jews, Caucasians, African-Americans, Middle Easterners, women, southerners and more are all up for comedic material in this movie, giving it a strong R rating.

Surprisingly enough, the humor works because of how oblivious Borat remains throughout the picture. The character, from which all these vulgar and despicable sayings and actions come, is actually endearing and sympathetic at times in this movie. The viewer is never truly able to turn against a comedian like Borat, whereas it might be easier to do so with more obviously mean-spirited, sarcastic comedians.

While most of the humor does indeed work, the more overt humor doesn’t always hammer home. More obvious jokes like Borat’s slapstick moves and sexual references are rather hit-or-miss. At times, the movie can linger on a joke for a bit too long as well. The male nudity throughout worked well at times and didn’t at others. The strength of Borat’s comedy is writing and timing, not how far Borat will take it.

The film felt authentic, with good performances turned in from both of the leads, Sacha Boren Cohen and Ken Davitian.

Most remarkable about the cinematography would be the shaky camerawork in some scenes. This was intended to make the movie come across as a real documentary in the making. Many times, characters would talk right at the camera, generally a comedy faux pas, and it only aided the movie.

Contrary to some critical opinion, I don’t believe this is the best comedy ever made, nor is it the best comedy made recently. (That distinction I would attribute to Clerks II.) However, Borat is a very enjoyable, albeit wildly offensive, comedy and merits a watch.

Grade: B-