Borat is back, and it’s the mid 2000s all over again! We haven’t had to go long without the antics of Sasha Baron Cohen, since his show Who Is America? aired in 2018. However, with the start of COVID-19, and the lack of content being released, receiving this treat. Especially with studios withdrawing and postponing movies left and right.
Well, lets get on with this! Put on your best Borat impersonation, and dive into our critique, which as always is broken down into three categories: Story, Acting, and Overall.
STORY: 7/10
Is NIICE! I promise that’s the only time I’ll do that. While it’s hard to say that the original Borat film had a story, the sequel makes up for it. Still a collection of interactions with the heartland of America, each interaction is told with purpose. Even if the pieces may have been shoehorned together after the fact, or as they were able to be acquired. They left a lot of segments on the cutting room floor. You can see so many of the deleted scenes in the trailer, and online, as one of them had Tutar heading into the White House days before the release of Covid-19!
It was interesting seeing the first content post Covid-19, and if they would connect to the pandemic, or avoid it. Borat Subsequent Movie Film leans directly into the pandemic, even as began to spread mid filming.
ACTING: 7/10
It’s hard to give this a category of “Acting” since most of the people in the film aren’t acting. The only real actors here are in the segments of Kazakhstan and by Sacha Baron Cohen and Maria Bakalova. While Borat might have been like falling into a glove for Cohen, he had to live in the character for days as he quarantined with QAnon members during the pandemic. You have to give him credit for that kind of dedication, and how hard it would be to pretend to be someone else to that degree for so long.
Also, the work by Maria Bakalova as Tutar Sagdiyev was one of the most important works from the film. Without Maria Bakalova, the film would fall flat.
OVERALL: 7/10
While some might say that the original film was insane, and vapid, this sequel has more heart, more purpose, and an actual story. The beginning, and conclusion book end a heartfelt story, which is only made stronger by the work of Jeanise Jones. The good news is after the film was over, and the success of it, Sasha Baron Cohen donated $100,000 to the IndieGoGo for Jeanise Jones, since she lost her job due to Covid-19.
It’s important to note that the insane actions of the people in the movie, who aren’t actors can be partially explained by the fact that a lot of them are told lies about the filming, claiming documentaries and reality TV. It’s still crazy how they act, but they consented to be filmed, and choose to act the way they acted.
Conner’s Final Thought(s):
We call foul… technically. We think a large portion of the clips filmed were actually for the series “Who Is America?” for HBO, under the idea that they might make a second season, and then potentially decided half way through the process to switch the content to being focused on Borat. It was a perfect time, and we appreciate Cohen releasing it early and on Amazon Prime, so people could watch this film with enough time before the election.
Also, as far as “October Surprises” go, Rudy Giuliani’s shirt tuck was quite a doozy.
Facebook Comments