You know Cohen's Borat schtick, he acts absurdly in character as a racist/sexist/homophonic Kazahk testing how far the real people he encounters (who don't know who he is) will play along with him, often revealing their own ugliness. His prank targets include the rather benign people with whom he generally just enacts silly bits, to those forwarding an agenda he wants to reveal for its heinousness whom he usually allows to just show off their own ugliness without needing hardly any help. It's hard to feel sorry for a lot of these folks as they often seem quite willing to be rather disgusting. His act is an interesting and often revealing social experiment presented as comedy, yet often I find it hard to laugh. Underlying this experiment is q very disturbing culture which we've seen rise to even more prominence since he began his work.
By making a sequel to his hit 2006 movie 14 years later, Cohen has to tackle on the problem with the fact that he has become too famous since the last time to get many people to fall for it. There is a scene near the beginning where he acknowledges that many people know him and follow him around asking for autographs. He has had to come up with further disguises so he isn't recognized, he can't just be Borat. He also has to deal with a far more emboldened and prominent subset of racists and bigots who feel more comfortable putting their ugliness on display. His tricks are the same, but the results display a shamelessness that is extremely off-putting.
I know many find this hilarious, and I understand Cohen's mission is to make fun of the kinds of people he targets, to criticize them, to uncover the rocks and leave the insects underneath scrambling. But for me it's often so upsetting to see people acting this way, that even the catharsis of the humiliation they are facing by being exposed isn't enough to make me feel like laughing at the horrors he is exposing. Often the jokes are barely funny enough to overcome the darkness he is shining a light on. For me this Borat sequel made me more sad than happy.
There is a beautiful moment in the middle which is both inspiring and quiet sad. He (a Jewish man himself) dresses up as a caricature of a Jew through the eyes of an anti-Semite. He enters a synagogue and meets two elderly Jewish women there, one who identifies as a Holocaust survivor. He plays his shtick as a bigot and they embrace him and show him love and understanding, feeding him, all despite the game he is playing. I understand he broke his own rules and revealed to the women who he really was so they wouldn't think he was for real. It is a powerfully poignant moment but it also highlights the nastiness which pervades this gimmick. I understand the one woman in question has passed away and her family is not happy about the film's use of her. I have so many mixed feelings about this scene and the rest of the movie, mixed feelings that make it hard for me to enjoy it.
There is another woman who appears in the film who does her best to try to counter a lot of Borat's (and his daughter's) put on racism and sexism and God bless her for going through all that. But more often than not we are shown truly deplorable people acting without shame. And I worry we've got to the point where they won't even see their own ugliness even when presented in this context.
So while I get the point of this film and Cohen's mission, and while there are moments that did make me laugh a little, for me the film is far more sad than fun. It's like watching a tragedy play itself out and trying to laugh a little. I admire Cohen's goals and I'm glad that other gets enjoyment from this but it just doesn't work for me.
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
Starring: Sacha Baron Cohen, Maria Bakaloa, Tom Hanks, Mike Pence, Rudy Giuliani, Macy Chanel
Director: Jason Woliner
Writers: Sacha Baron Cohen, et al.
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