Review – Borat

This one has some moments, but they’re few and far between. The scripted parts are actually fairly funny. For example, I liked the stuff set in Kazakhstan. I liked some of the interactions between our hero and his sidekick. And I loved Oksana the Bear (especially when they drove her around in an ice cream truck and scared a bunch of kids). Further, I thought that here and there the film-makers made some good points about prejudice (particularly anti-Semitism) in American society. However, most of the movie seems to be made up of Cohen and cohort doing the Borat routine around oblivious – sometimes even unwilling – participants. Even when this works it seldom provokes more than a chuckle. And frequently it fails. There’s nothing wrong with an improv actor coming up a bit short sometimes. It happens to the best of them. But the stale segments when Cohen flounders for something to keep a conversation going … that sort of thing doesn’t go into the final cut. Mildly amusing