Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm - Borat gets (slightly) 'woke,' in what amounts to Baron Cohen's comedic 'Trump bomb'
By Jim Slotek
Rating: B
In an absurdist sense, Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm is the “woke” follow-up to 2006’s anarchical Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.
That is to say, Sacha Baron Cohen’s character of Borat, the journalist from a fictional, medievalist Kazakhstan, gradually learns valuable lessons about, for example, women (they don’t belong in cages), and Jews (they don’t have bat wings, and the ones he meets are really nice).
Borat (Sacha Baron Cohen) attempts to school his daughter (Maria Bakalova) on being a proper trophy wife.
This is not to say that this sequel - whose full unwieldy title is Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan – has lost its bite. There are plenty of shock-laughs of the I-can’t-believe-I-just-saw-that variety, and people, who may or may not be playing along, saying things that could get them in plenty of trouble in the real world.
But Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm has a clear raison d’etre, which dovetails with its release just before the American election. In interviews, Baron Cohen has been public in his pleas for the U.S. to oust the man Borat refers to admiringly as “McDonald Trump” - even writing an op-ed piece in Time magazine. And the Trump administration – and the COVID 19 pandemic - are integral to the plot of Borat’s return to the U.S. 14 years later.
Speaking of public, it would be a spoiler to name some of the public figures who fall into Borat’s drive-by web. But for the truly curious, a Google search will reveal some incidents of the police being called on Baron Cohen during filming by some famous people.
And there will likely be a tsunami of social media discussion of at least one remarkably embarrassing political encounter.
When we re-meet Borat, he is in a hard labour camp back in Kazakhstan, sentenced there for life because of the humiliation the previous film heaped upon that glorious nation.
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But a call from the Premier’s office offers a chance at redemption. Borat can live if he connives to deliver a nationally-beloved chimp (who is also the country’s minister of culture) to U.S. vice president Mike Pence as a goodwill gift. If he fails, he dies.
Through twists and turns, Borat ends up in America in the company of his teenage daughter Tutar (Maria Bakalova), an almost feral teen who’s been raised in a stable. But she has dreams. Specifically, she wants to marry an old man in the Trump regime so she can “live in a golden cage” like Melania.
Thus, the plot morphs into another tour of America, with the purpose of making the 15-year-old into a presentable trophy bride for Pence (and failing that, there are other high up Republicans on whom to sell her off). We meet big-haired beauty and etiquette advisors, we see her presented at a Georgia “coming out” party, she consults a plastic surgeon about breast implants. And in the process, she learns that American women can drive and do all sorts of things that are hard to do from the confines of a cage or stable.
How much is real is hard to figure.
As a character, Borat is so famous, a sequel with unsuspecting participants seems unfeasible. And the film addresses this immediately, as he is loudly recognized with demands for autographs and selfies on arrival in the U.S. So, Borat spends most of the movie in absurd disguises.
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm seems a terrific piece of seat-of-the-pants filmmaking, with what appear to be real close-escapes from predicaments. It’s worth noting, however, that the director is one Jason Woliner, and not the original’s Larry Charles. Charles, a veteran of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm, worked most of his career under the mantra, “No lessons, no hugs.”
So, when all is said and done, this is definitely not Larry Charles’ Borat. It put me to mind more of the later seasons of All in the Family, when Archie Bunker’s bigotry inevitably softened.
Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm. Directed by Jason Woliner. Starring Sacha Baron Cohen and Maria Bakalova. Debuts Friday, October 23 on Amazon Prime.