Borat Subsequent Moviefilm Review

Election fever is upon and Sacha Baron Cohen has used the political climate to make a sequel to Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

Since the events of the first film Borat has sentenced to a life time of hard labour for bringing Kazakhstan into disrepute. Borat gets a chance for redemption when Premier Nursultan Nazabayev gives Borat a mission to bring Mike Pence a gift, Johnny the Monkey, the Kazakh Minister of Culture. But anything that’s involves Borat has the potential to go wrong.

The original Borat movie was a big hit back in 2006. It tapped into people’s pre-conceived views of middle America, especially people outside of America. This was a time where George W. Bush had won a second election, the religious right had dominated American politics, and America had recently invaded Iraq. Cohen played on the worst instincts of these people and one of the infamous scenes was the speech at the Rodeo.

It’s arguable that America had degraded since the election of Donald Trump. Under his presidency the far-right have been emboldened (i.e. the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville,) Trump becoming friendly with autocrats, conspiracy theories becoming more acceptable, and the Trump administration’s mishandling of the Coronavirus. Borat Subsequent Moviefilm addresses a lot of issues. During the film Borat meets some hardcore Trump supporters who believe Hilary Clinton was the head of a paedophile ring that drinks children’s blood and goes down the QAnon rabbit hole to find Holocaust deniers. One of the best fly-on-the-wall moments was when Borat attends an Anti-Lockdown rally and gets the crowd to sing along with him. It was a repeat of his “Throw the Jew Down the Well” sketch.

As well as being a mockumentary, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm wanted to have a conventional movie plot. The sequel was a road movie where Borat had to bond with his daughter, Tutar (Maria Bakalova.) He has an arc where he tries to use her as a commodity to realising she might be a bit more than that. This led to Borat Subsequent Moviefilm feeling more artificial with both itself set-pieces, filming, and editing. There were conversations that were filmed like a convenient film with over-the-shoulder shots. One of the biggest sequences in the film was Borat infiltrating the CPAC event and interrupts Mike Pence’s speech, yet it was clear that footage showing the lead up to the stunt was filmed at a different date.

Since the first film, Cohen has become more famous in America and Borat became a pop culture icon. This made Cohen’s task more difficult because no one was going to be willingly punked by his character. The sequel does acknowledge this because people recognise Borat on the street, forcing him to go in disguise. There were still some fun fly-on-the-wall sequences like when Borat buys a smartphone, Borat going into a cake shop, and Borat walking his daughter on a leash.

I personally found the funniest moments in the film to be at the beginning. Borat narrates what has happened between films. This was where there was concentrated edgy humour, like Kazakhstan’s twisted version of Holocaust Remembrance Day and showing the black men who became leaders of Western nations. This was the part of the film where it did take a slight swipe at the left as well as the right. The film also showed the stereotypical backward nation that we saw in the first film and got to see the treatment of women.

Maria Bakalova does deserve a lot of praise for her role. Bakalova was committed to the role and did have great comedic timing, especially during the early part of the film where she acted as a desperate teenager who wanted her daddy’s love. Her arc in the film was she learned she didn’t need to be like Melania and marry a rich old man. Unfortunately, she developed ridiculous ideas of female empowerment.

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm is not going to change anyone’s mind regarding American politics. It’s hard to be satirical when the people in charge are so farcical. Yet it still managed to be funny and I did laugh out loud during the first and third acts.