Directed by Jason Woliner
Starring Sacha Baron Cohen, Maria Bakalova and Rudy Guliani
Running Time: 1 Hour and 35 Minutes
MPAA Rating: R for pervasive strong crude and sexual content, graphic nudity, and language

by Ian Hrabe

As if 2020 couldn’t get any more absurd, Sacha Baron Cohen has dusted off his Borat suit and mustache and delivered another satiric send-up of American culture just in time for the election. It has been 14 years since Borat won over American hearts and minds--the film that launched 1000 MY WIIIIFE impressions throughout the frat houses of America--and it’s hard to even fathom 2006 at this point in American life. It was an America where George W. Bush was a war criminal and the worst president the country had ever seen and, faced with Donald Trump and the GOP, Bush now seems like a toothless puppy in comparison. It’s fertile ground for Cohen’s brand of absurdist satire and, though Borat Subsequent Moviefilm is a clunky affair, it’s comforting to have a film that directly addresses and lampoons the political agita of the moment and the pandemic.

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm finds our hero sentenced to hard labor in the gulag for making a mockery of the once glorious nation of Kazakhstan with his 2006 documentary of his trip to America. The Kazahk premier offers Borat a shot at redemption. Kazakhstan very much wants to align themselves with America’s strongman leader Donald Trump and they want Borat to hand deliver a gift to American vice president and notorious ladies man (who refuses to be left alone in a room with a woman who is not his wife, hence the deduction on Kazakhstan’s part) Michael Pence. That gift? Kazakhstan’s ministry of culture and “#1 porno star” Johnny the Monkey. After an arduous journey to the States, Borat finds to his dismay that his daughter has smuggled herself into the country in Johnny the Monkey’s crate and Johnny the Monkey appears to have “eaten himself.” It is here our story begins in earnest, as Borat’s plan b involves giving his feral daughter a makeover so she is fit to give as a gift to vice president Pence.

Though the film is sold on its big setpieces that put American political figures in compromising positions, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm has a weirdly sweet center built on Borat’s relationship with his daughter Tutar (played by Bulgarian actress Maria Bakalova). Bakalova is a surprisingly great foil for Cohen’s Borat and is just as willing as Cohen to get down in the muck for a laugh. Though they get up to some particularly gross and cringeworthy antics, there’s something heartwarming about Tutar’s journey of self-discovery. It’s what keeps Borat Subsequent Moviefilm from being a purely juvenile gross out comedy. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a juvenile gross out comedy, but one that at least takes some time to tell a story of an evolving relationship between a father and daughter.

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm’s political setpieces are going to get all of the attention, which overlooks the fact that most of the movie features Borat dunking on various aspects of American life. Much of the film feels like a reheat of the first Borat to the sequel’s detriment. Somehow Borat buying a cage for his daughter (the traditional housing for Kazahk women), an antisemetic cake for vice president Pence and attending a debutante ball where Borat and his daughter perform a “Kazahk fertility dance” are all tedious leadup to the political stuff. It’s different when Cohen goes after people in the political sphere. Those people at least feel like they deserve it. But when he goes after shop owners and other normal people, it just feels kind of mean spirited and unfun.

That said, when Borat infiltrates a conservative political action committee convention dressed in a klan robe (he’s trying to be inconspicuous mind you) the movie snaps back to life. Sacha Baron Cohen proved with his series Who is America? that he has no shame or fear when it comes to putting politicians in compromising situations or causing a public scene, and the scene he makes at the convention in an attempt to deliver his daughter to Pence is pure wonderful insanity. A later sequence finds Borat attending a right wing pro-Trump anti-mask rally and getting the crowd to sing along with an anti-liberal song (“Obama was a traitor/America he hate her”) that has the crowd singing along to the refrain of “inject him with the Wuhan flu” with some even throwing up Nazi salutes. It’s a terrifying look at right wing America, and one of the film’s most potent sequences.

The coup de grace, however, is a fake interview with Rudy Giuliani. It brings to mind Godard’s quote about film being “truth at 24 frames-per-second.” Though this film is a wild satire, it feels like we see the real Giuliani: a man who has been in the news just this past week for being the funnel that the Russians use to drip disinformation into Trump’s ear. We know he’s a dupe, so it’s not shocking that he would participate in a fake sitdown interview. It’s a true portrait of a moron, and the sliminess that exudes from Giuliani must be seen to be believed (ok you probably already believe it, but it is still a magnificent prank). Where many of the pranks in this film are mean spirited, this one is cathartic. It’s hard to believe Giuliani wasn’t in on it because it almost feels like it’s too on the nose. But that’s America’s Mayor for you and, while it is hilarious, it’s also terrifying that this man has so much influence in American politics.

Ultimately Borat Subsequent Moviefilm feels a bit undercooked and overworked, but still has enough spectacle to make it work. It’s one of the first movies to come out of the lockdown, and there’s something comforting about that. The tendency to indulge in escapism is strong at this time, so having a film that addresses the horrors of our shared reality with humor is refreshing. Borat Subsequent Moviefilm isn’t going to win any awards, and it’s unlikely to have the longevity of the first film but, in this moment where everything is on fire, it’s <adopts Borat voice> VERY NIIIICE.

Watch Borat exclusively on Amazon Prime tomorrow, Friday, October 23.