Fourteen years after Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, Sacha Baron Cohen as the Kazakh journalist Borat Sagdiyev is back in a surprise film made in secret over the year. There had been hints that Cohen was up to something throughout the past few months, but now we have our answer in this biting satire. For the past decade-plus, Cohen has mostly shifted away from this sort of thing that made him famous and instead focused on mainstream films, some of which he's good in (Hugo), some of which he's not so good in (Les Misérables), and some of which you probably forgot he was in (Sweeney Todd). (He also appears in this year's The Trial of the Chicago 7, though his performance is less interesting than the others in the ensemble cast.)
Why is Borat back in the spotlight? He is tasked by the Kazakh government with repairing the damage he did with his previous film by offering a bribe to the leaders of the U.S. government (yes, those ones). (Though I've never been to Kazakhstan, I doubt it's anything like the Kazakhstan depicted in this film. The scenes taking place in Kazakhstan were filmed in Romania, and Cohen's "Kazakh", for example, is actually Hebrew.) Once reaching American shores, he is disturbed to discover that his teenage daughter, Tatur (played by Bulgarian actress Maria Bakalova), has snuck into a crate and now must join him in his mission. Their journey puts them on a path across the U.S., predictably meeting a large span of people, including an Instagram influencer, anti-maskers, and a QAnon dummy duo.
After making Bruno in 2009, I recall hearing Cohen mention in interviews that his days of doing these kinds of mockumentaries were over because people would recognize him and nobody would fall for his pranks. The latter is definitely not true, as Cohen has continued releasing such works as recently as a few years ago with the Showtime series Who Is America? For this story, however, Borat knows that people will recognize him on the street, so he often disguises himself, often in beards and cowboy hats. Once in the U.S., Borat enthusiastically wants to meet the "magnificent new premier" of the United States. When this doesn't work, he compromises and settles for the "vice premier", "Mikhael Pence". That brings Borat and his daughter to an annual conservative meeting where Pence is giving a speech (about how prepared the government is for the coronavirus, which is such a devastating remark that no further comment is needed). Dressed in a Trump fatsuit and somehow sneaking past security, he interrupts Pence's speech to try and give him his daughter. Alas, Borat is unable to present his daughter as a bribe to the vice premier. Borat feels he is out of options until Tutar comes up with the idea that they should go for the next big thing: "America's Mayor", Rudy Giuliani. The scenes with Giuliani are the ones that have created the highest amount of attention and controversy, especially in recent days.
Giuliani has defiantly said he didn't fall for Cohen's trick. From the looks of it in every possible way, this appears to be a bizarre claim to make. Incidentally, Giuliani's client, Mr. Trump, similarly boasted that he didn't fall for Cohen's prank when he was interviewed by the comedian in 2003 (with Cohen playing another one of his characters, Ali G), though Cohen pointed out that it took Trump a lot longer than most to figure out what was going on. Giuliani has also argued he did nothing wrong. Aside from the ethics of trying to sleep with a journalist who just interviewed you and cheating on your girlfriend, this is technically true. Giuliani, for the record, has been married thrice before, including, as Cohen reminds us and Giuliani (possibly to his face), once to his second cousin.
What works in Borat 2 is essentially what has always worked in these kind of prankumentaries by Cohen: exploiting a toxic and peculiar combination of American politeness, ignorance, and racism to expose a dark side of society many would rather not discuss. I did not rewatch the first film in preparation for this one, but it seems that the "subsequent moviefilm" focuses not simply on anti-Semitism, but also combating sexism, racism, and authoritarianism. Anti-Semitism does show up, though. Tutar tells her father that she has used Facebook to discover the "truth" about the Holocaust, essentially that it did not happen. (Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook have been frequent targets of Cohen's in recent years.)
What doesn't work in Borat 2 is that there's dual discomfort in the awkwardness he presents. For one, my tolerance for cringe humor is much lower in 2020 than it was in 2006. Additionally, these days viewers are far more cognizant of how a character like Borat plays to our xenophobia; the character is like a leftwing version of South Park. Additionally, there's nothing Cohen can do to shock us anymore. On an episode of Da Ali G Show in 2004, Borat went to a bar in Arizona and sang a song called "Throw the Jew Down the Well" to a supportive audience that merrily joined in. Here, as Borat in disguise, he crashes a right-wing "March for Our Lives" rally in Olympia, Washington and sings a song about chopping up journalists "like the Saudis do." There's nothing surprising if the audience hoots and hollers to that, given the present political climate.
I feel a bit of guilt in admitting that I still found myself laughing (a lot) at a character and idea I just called xenophobic, or at least borderline xenophobic. I don't know how to reconcile the fact that a character I find, regardless of its good intentions, to be problematic is still one who makes me laugh. It's something the left is often unwilling to talk about. I find Larry David funny, but his show Curb Your Enthusiasm contains every kind of offensive -ism you can name, and yet because he is who he is, liberals won't call him out for it. If it were Larry the Cable guy and not Larry David telling those jokes, there would be an uproar.
But David and Cohen still make me laugh. The laughter I get from Borat is similar to seeing an old friend for the first time in a decade; there will likely be lots of laughter, even though it will be less frequent after about forty-five minutes, but eventually you might have to reconsider your friendship if he's not willing to evaluate his offensiveness. In essence, times have changed since I saw that friend fourteen years ago; I have changed. What do I do if my friend hasn't? At any rate, as problematic as it is, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm is probably the funniest film of the year, a year in which there was little humor, in films or elsewhere.
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