‘Borat’ 2 among releases
‘Subsequent Moviefilm’ can’t live up to the original
See how the sequel “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” and the remakes of “Rebecca” and “The Witches” fare with Republic film critic Bill Goodykoontz.
When the first “Borat” film came out in 2006, it was blindingly original, an expertly executed prank Sacha Baron Cohen played on America, forcing the country to look at itself in an often unflattering way.
Now Baron Cohen is back with “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm,” a sequel that brings Baron Cohen’s character back to the United States for more cringeworthy antics. If you didn’t see the first film, Borat is a reporter from Kazakhstan who comes to America to report. Baron Cohen, always in character, tricks real people into doing funny and sometimes awful things.
But the new film doesn’t reveal as much about our thinly veiled ugliness as the first one did, for a couple of reasons.
There are 2 key reasons ‘Borat 2’ doesn’t land like the original
A big one is that so much has been revealed about us already in the last four years. Racists don’t go to the same trouble to hide themselves or soften their message so much anymore. Now bigotry is more out in the open.
There’s a scene in the new film set at a rally that is funny because of Baron Cohen’s performance of a song he wrote with a couple of QAnon members — seriously, a couple of guys who think the Clintons drink the blood of children. But other than that it plays like just another gathering of gun-toting white supremacists.
When you see it on the actual news all the time, it’s less shocking here. It’s somewhat similar to the problem “Saturday Night Live” faces every week: How do you lampoon something so ridiculous to begin with?
Also, there’s just no getting around that bringing back the original character for a sequel is going to be less original. It’s the same character doing variations on the same things. So yes, it’s pretty funny when Borat finds some unsuspecting mark to fax his boss idiotic messages back in Kazakhstan, but it’s not wildly different from what we’ve seen before.
How Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat winds up in the US again
There are some differences, of course. The film picks up in real-ish time. Borat is now breaking rocks while doing hard labor in his home country. He has embarrassed the nation, it’s decided. But he’s pulled out of incarceration to go on a special mission: to give President Donald Trump a gift. Trump befriends ruthless strongman despots around the world, they figure, and Kazakhstan’s leader wants in on the friend action.
Borat has lost everything. “All I had left was my livestocks — two pig, one cow and a daughter.”
That’s Tutar (Maria Bakalova, maybe — she’s also listed as “Irina Novak” on IMDb), who lives with the animals because despite being 15 she hasn’t gotten married and put in her wife cage. (Borat’s version of Kazakhstan is a misogynist’s paradise.)
Tutar is watching
a
Disney-like
princess movie about Melania, a peasant girl who dreams of marrying a rich old man — Fat King Donald, in the cartoon.
“I will be the next Melania,” Tutar says. “She is the happiest wife in the world.”
Borat leaves for the U.S., but events conspire to reunite him with Tutar after he arrives. The new plan becomes to offer Tutar to Vice President Mike Pence as a gift.
That’s the setup, longer than the one in the first film, when Borat roamed around with Azamat (Ken Davitian) to eventually find Pamela Anderson.
‘Borat Subsequent Moviefilm’ is funny. But it can’t outshine the first one
The journey isn’t as ambitious this time — they travel mostly in the south. And aspects of the relationship between Borat and Tutar play too large a role in
the story. It’s basically the same joke over and over: Women can’t drive, think, learn new things, etc. Except, as it slowly dawns on Tutar, in the U.S. they seemingly can.
As with the first film, some real-life people embarrass themselves. An Instagram influencer instructs Tutar in how to be a “sugar baby,” a younger woman who dates a much older man.
“As a woman you never want to be a person who is aggressive,” Chanel says. “You want to be more submissive. We have to be kind of weak.”
Sounds like she would be at home in Borat’s version of Kazakhstan.
No more spoilers about their adventures, though once again there are some gross-out scenes. And I have some questions about how much Rudy Giuliani knew and when he knew it — and if he
knew nothing, which I suspect is the case, I have even more. (You’ll see.)
What is unexpected is the tonal shift in the last part of the movie. Baron Cohen, working with director Jason Woliner (taking over for the brilliant Larry Charles), has conditioned us to anticipate the uncomfortable in every scene. When it doesn’t arrive, well, maybe he’s tricked us again.
“Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” is certainly funny. It’s just not the flash of inspiration the first movie was — it can’t be. Baron Cohen revealed more out of contemporary America (and a lot about Arizona) with the 2018 TV series “Who Is America?” The new movie will make you laugh, but too often it’s more of the same.