KEY POINTS:
Herald rating: 5/5
The worry with Borat is that of premature adulation. Everything I've seen, read, or run in these pages about Brit comedian Sacha Baron Cohen's second film, a largely unscripted mockumentary savaging Middle America, suggests it was going to be hilarious.
But all that exposure also brought on the feeling that I already knew how the Borat joke ended before the lights went down. Turns out though that there's far more to the film than the gags in the trailer. It's a sustained piece of comedic brilliance that works on many strange and surprising levels.
Yes, at times it is ugly, gross and casually offensive, and not above potty humour and dumb sex gags. But Cohen is so sharp-witted in his guise as Borat Sagdiyev, a Kazakhstan television journalist sent to the United States on a fact-finding mission, you also sit in there in wonder of his utter fearlessness as he confronts Americans both well-known and ordinary folks and manages to bring out the worst in them.
Actually, various US citizens in Borat are a fine advertisement for the country, especially the driving instructor, the "humour coach" and Borat's guide in southern etiquette. They gently tolerate his supposed naivety, his cultural differences, but don't get sucked in by his outlandish views.
Even those folks at the pentecostal church whose service he invades might seem unhinged in their speaking-in-tongues frenzy, but they welcome Borat in.
But, of course, some Americans were harmed in the making of this movie. Mainly because they spoke their narrow minds to a man they clearly thought shared their ugly views.
And after the scenes back in Borat's own neighbourhood you do come out feeling sorry for Kazakhstan - which is something, as most of world didn't feel anything for Kazakhstan before (wherever it is).
It's in those early home scenes where you see Borat's greatest feat - which is sustained throughout - making you laugh, and wishing you weren't at the same time. It can be cruel and cringe-inducing but even its cheapest laughs are priceless.
There's something about Baron Cohen's fervent and frankly Oscar-worthy performance that makes you wonder if somewhere up there, Peter Sellers is enjoying a good chuckle at his heir apparent.
Cast: Sacha Baron Cohen
Director: Larry Charles
Rating: R16 (offensive language, sexual material, other content that may offend)
Running time: 84 mins
Screening: SkyCity, Hoyts, Berkeley cinemas
Verdict: The anti-Semitic, racist, misogynist feelgood comedy of the year.
