Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006)

This is How Movies Should Be Made

Overrated and overhyped

Memorable, crazy movie

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

I recently wrote a review of Dad's Army (2016) and was shocked to see that film offered up as the worst film ever made. I hated it; it was a poor movie in every respect, but I watched it for about 10 minutes longer than I watched the abysmal Borat - and I will never get those 20 minutes back either. I won't lie - I didn't pay to see this sorry excuse for entertainment at a cinema. It had actually just appeared on Sky Movies (pay to view) or whatever it was at the time, so this had to be way back around 2007, and my wife really wanted to see it because of the reviews she had read somewhere. Me, I knew of Sacha Baron Cohen by his reputation and what I had heard was enough for me to suggest we watch something else (or poke cocktail sticks into each other's eyes, for fun) but no. So she watched with enthusiasm and I watched with a heavy heart and Samaritans on speed dial. After 10 minutes she was rather less enthusiastic, and at the 20 minute mark she actually apologised to me (a rare occurrence) for choosing to watch something so moronic and suggested we watch something a little more entertaining instead. I forget what we did watch, but it was infinitely better (and, whatever it was, be it Schindler's List or whatever, it would have been funnier) than watching Borat. Borat was infantile. It was crude. It was offensive - and that was just the 20 minutes that we watched. We both agreed on these things the following day when discussing why we quit a movie we had paid good money to watch, and when talking with friends we discovered we were not alone - in fact we had difficulty in finding anyone who would admit to having watched the thing to the end; those who did mainly said they had paid to see the film and that walking out was not an option. No one said that it was as funny as we had all been led to believe it was and, 11-odd years later, not one person I have spoken to recently has good memories of this shameful movie. Incidentally, today I was looking at DVD's in a charity shop and there was Borat (99p). Interesting to note that, apparently, there is even more shocking footage that is included as bonus extras that didn't make it to the original edit. Just imagine how much worse it could have been... Also interesting that the bits taken from reviews, telling us how fantastic this production was, are from what would have been regarded as 'lad's mags' that have gone to the wall. Baron Cohen has said something along the lines of he uses his characters to expose the prejudices prevalent in society. I would ask if he isn't perhaps waving a red cape before a bull and when the bull charges he tells us that this demonstrates that bulls are obviously monsters whose violent and antisocial actions he is exposing. Maybe he could be persuaded to poke an angry beehive with a stick, naked, to show that bees can also be provoked, rather than giving us anymore of his lame characters. Either way, he is not someone whose films I will rush out to watch. In fact nearly anything with the name Sacha Baron Cohen in it means that, generally, we will not watch it - although the kids love the Madagascar series, but were indifferent to Hugo - so there will be no chance of deliberately watching anymore of his crass output.In summary: this is absolutely the worst film I have ever had the misfortune to pay money to view. I gave a score of 1 because there is no lower figure, but this production - to me - would seriously justify there being a minus score opportunity for IMDB reviews.

A satirical journey through America. One of the funniest movies I have ever seen in my life. On occasion when some of the scenes appear in my mind, I laugh out loud. A must see for comedy fans.

I'm sitting in front of an open post for about 10 minutes not knowing what to think, let alone write. It left me speechless for a while. In fact, not movie itself, but hype it caused when it was released. For months I was listening about it, "It's hilarious. It's offensive. It's actually pretty smart as well", its screenplay was even nominated for Oscar... I was skeptical, but I would lie if I said I had no expectations. I expected it not to be as good as it was popular, but I really didn't expect complete crap. Out of the attributes mentioned above, it is only offensive. Don't get me wrong, I'm not at all against offensiveness. Quite opposite, I'm against today's aggressive political correctness and offensiveness is one of my favorite techniques in achieving humor. But if we are going to be offensive let's do it in the most hilarious way possible. If it's not funny then it's just offensive and just offensive is ugly. This movie offends not only Kazakhstan and Americans, this movie offends our intelligence. I admit, in preadolescence childhood I might find it quite entertaining, but as an adult... If they were going for "it's so bad that it's good" type of movie then I could forgive their failure cause that kind of movie is really hard to do right, but if they were just going for good comedy then I really have no idea what to say...4/10

My Personal Rating: 6.8/10You know what? i'm not gonna go further on this review here's what i'm gonna tell you. this movie almost kills me. of laughter. this is one of the few comedy movies that made me laugh my ass off that i can't almost breathe. and i'm not easy to make laugh. and i also think most comedy movies today are corny and i don't laugh at them as much as what i did to this borat. it might not be a high quality made film. but who cares! this film is all about borat and his stupid attitude that leds to hilarious scene. except for end i don't care about anything on this movie but borat. so is this movie bad?... NOT!.