Boratting: Cohen goes for the shock but misses the kill

A number of my fellow co-workers have been trying to go see Borat but have repeatedly found that shows are all sold out. Only one out of three succeeded. After I tried unsuccessfully to attend twice, I finally saw it this past weekend.

When I first heard about the film, I wasn’t all that interested but thought I’d go see it just to stay in-the-know (I’ve only ever seen Ali G as a host on some European music awards show and haven’t seen much else of Sacha Baron Cohen’s other work). Turns out, my initial appraisals were correct. While there were numerous humorous bits and outrageous scenes, it wasn’t quite as clever as I thought it might be.

In spite of the entertainment value, Cohen’s manipulative techniques for getting peoples’ reactions have raised a lot of controversy. I think the strongest points of his movie occur when Cohen focusses his shock tactics for a specific purpose, primarily to get interviewees to expose their most honest thoughts, rather than just embarrass them. I’ve never really found the slapstick pranks on Candid Camera that amusing and accordingly, I didn’t think too much of the similar stunts on Borat.

What is always interesting, however, is being able to see the views that are often hidden from view or concealed beneath a veneer of PC restraint. And Borat managed to reveal those opinions several times (there were a few times I thought Cohen chickened out from pursuing his subjects in his characteristic way.) He could take a few notes from how Canadian comedian Rick Mercer interviews people on his TV show Talking to Americans and exposes their ignorance in a more straightforward, insightful way. On the other hand though, Cohen seems to really relish using discomfort and socially inappropriate things to provoke reactions.

I also thought it would have been funnier if he had pretended to be from an Eastern European country that doesn’t exist at all rather than one that does (I’m sure the angry people of Kazakhstan—and the Romanian extras—would have preferred that). Hopefully people will want to know more about the real countries involved and find out more.

Nonetheless, I am interested in seeing his next movie featuring one of his other personas: Bruno, a gay Austrian TV reporter. The clip I saw on YouTube was what I thought most of Borat would be like.