Borat Sequel Tackles American Politics
Wow. I never expected to be given the gift of watching a Borat sequel. The first movie, released in 2006, remains one of the greatest comedies of all time. It combines genuine reactions from unsuspecting American Citizens to Sacha Baron Cohen’s antics as a culturally clueless news reporter from Kazakhstan, with a subtle yet powerful statement on bigotry in American society to create the type of laugh-out-loud humor that few other films can. The sequel, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan repeats this formula to a tee, with a stronger emphasis on the appalling behavior that has become acceptable under the current President.
If you haven’t seen the movie and want to avoid spoilers, skip ahead to the last paragraph of this review and do me a favor; once you’re done reading it, go to your Amazon Prime account and watch the movie.
*SPOILERS AHEAD*
The plot of Borat Subsequent Moviefilm is easier to understand than the plot of the first film. On behalf of the Kazakh government, Borat must deliver his fifteen-year-old daughter, Tutar as a gift of good faith to an American government official or he will be executed. The original recipient is supposed to be Vice President Mike Pence. In one of the movie’s most entertaining scenes, Borat disguises himself as President Trump to infiltrate the Conservative Political Action Conference where Pence is giving a speech. He bursts into the auditorium with Tutar slung over his back and yells to Pence from the crowd, offering up his daughter. Unsurprisingly, security guards quickly usher he and his daughter out of the building which made national news headlines back in February.
With Pence now unreachable, the next intended recipient is President Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani. After some time apart, Borat and his daughter set up an interview with Giuliani where Tutar pretends to be a journalist. Unless you live under a rock, you’ve probably heard that Giuliani landed himself in hot water in this scene. Tutar puts on a nice dress and recalls advice that she was given by an Instagram influencer earlier in the movie that “as a woman you have to be kind of weak” for men to like you. “No more strong” she says. It is heartbreaking to hear. Throughout the movie, Tutar feels as though she has to make herself more desirable to men. From splurging on new outfits to nearly having plastic surgery, Tutar’s struggles are an example of what many women go through in order to have career success in a misogynistic society.
Now we get to the infamous scene. Tutar sits down with Giuliani and they discuss the coronavirus. They flirt with each other a little bit. The actress who plays Tutar, Maria Bakalova does a phenomenal job keeping her composure in what must have been an incredibly uncomfortable situation. A few minutes later, the interview is interrupted and Giuliani invites Bakalova into the bedroom to have a drink. He wastes no time in soliciting her phone number and address before laying back on his bed and reaching into his pants. Borat rushes into the room to stop whatever was about to happen next, but we are shown enough. Although Giuliani denies that he was about to do anything sexual, those of us who are familiar with he and his colleagues’ gross history of taking advantage of women know what could have happened had Borat not saved the day.
From this scene with Giuliani to Borat’s song at a Trump rally where he got people to sing “Journalists! What we gonna do? Chop ‘em up like the Saudi’s do!”, Sacha Baron Cohen cleverly reveals the cruelty and heartlessness lurking among certain groups of people in America today, specifically those associated with or those who support President Trump. What amazes me most about the movie is that he does this all while delivering funniest performances of all time. Borat Subsequent Moviefilm feels original because unlike the first movie where Borat exposes the racism, sexism, and homophobia of certain parts of America, he now takes an unflinching stance on American politics, and hopefully after watching it you will too.