BORAT’S SUPERSIZE ELECTION BOOST FOR McDONALD TRUMP
REVIEW
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery Of Prodigious Bribe To American Regime For Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan, (15) Available on Amazon Prime Video from tomorrow ★★★★✩
JAGSHEMASH! Borat is, unexpectedly, back. It feels like a world away since 2006, when Sacha Baron Cohen’s bumbling, wildly anti-Semitic journalist Borat Sagdiyev first came from Kazakhstan to America on a mission to bed Pamela Anderson.
Now he’s back to ‘win the respect of McDonald Trump’ by donating his only 15-year-old daughter, Tutar Sandra Jessica Parker (a terrific Maria Bakalova), as a sex gift to the US vicepresident Michael Pence.
Can Tutar fulfil her childish princess dreams and have her ‘vagin’ grabbed by a fat rich man like her icon, Melania? It’s been a case of diminishing returns for British actor/ comedian/writer/producer Sacha Baron Cohen over the past 14 years. Ever since he first burst on to the scene as idiot alter-ego Ali G, his comedy brand has been all about provoking real people to expose their latent prejudices via jawdroppingly daring stunts (he wore bulletproof vests whilst making this). To make it work, his interviewees must never be in on the joke.
The problem is, as Borat puts it, ‘people now make recognise my face.’ So here he successfully disguises himself as ‘fat American man’ to dupe Trump voters in scenes that are outrageous as they are hilarious.
Shot this year – partially during lockdown – Baron Cohen decided to bring back Borat in direct response to the upcoming US presidential election on November 3.
Released as Americans are about to go to the polls, Borat 2’s undercurrent of dark urgency is palpable.
To Baron Cohen, Trump’s ‘great’ America, with its racist and misogynist conservative values, is a borderline fascist state to rival his fictional version of Kazakhstan.
‘Now vote or you will be execute,’ reads the end credit: the death of democracy is at stake.
Thankfully, he’s not too serious to waggle his willy around in a surgical mask for our amusement – here’s betting it spawns some eye-opening TikTok tributes.
No more spoilers – it’s shock that chokes the best laughs out. This is Sacha Baron Cohen’s funniest, edgiest, greatest movie since Borat 1. Very niiiice.