Recently released by Sacha Baron Cohen, and the subject of a major promotional campaign here and in the US.

With advertising everywhere and images projected onto famous buildings etc. - this humorous production is set to exceed the takings for the original Borat offering, in 2006.

The 2006 movie cost $18m to make and took over $260m at the box office. Irreverent and close to the bone topics - at their worst/best!

Guiliani (ex-NYC mayor and Trump lawyer) has been roped in - with Trump forced to defend him. Calling Cohen an 'unfunny creep'!

Never in movie history was there a more successful promotional campaign - for this 'nothing is sacred' extravaganza.

Timing was key too - releasing it in the run up to the US presidential election. Giving more air time to the Guliani denials and Trump comment.

The original was wrong but quite funny, toilet humour, nothing clever. Bruno and the Dictator were just awful, lame, unfunny crap.
I don't understand how it is ok to show a film like this, blatantly insulting to East Europeans, Portraying them as Sexist, backward and incestuous, whearas old comedies like "Mind Your Language" and "Love they Neighbour", which merely reflected the times, are off limits. Its probably because of course that Sacha Baron-Cohen went to Oxbridge and is not a middle-aged working class man. The character isn't even ethnically accurate. Kazakstanis are usually oriental looking, not Turkish/far eastern in appearance. The Borat character is so obviously based on that Turkish bloke on the internet in the 90s, Mahir_Çağrı. The old formula of pretending that situations are real, when really they are clearly scripted is wearing thin.

SBC's educational history isn't relevant - nor is John Wayne's.

Most movies are fantasies. This one is innovative and conceptional.

Watch it on Amazon Prime already
-- they are no fools, viewing figures are monumental.

middlemas wrote:
SBC's educational history isn't relevant - nor is John Wayne's.

Most movies are fantasies. This one is innovative and conceptional.

Watch it on Amazon Prime already
-- they are no fools, viewing figures are monumental.

In what way is it innovative. Isn't it the same crap we saw in 2006. Pretend scenarios where people are pretending to be in real life scenarios, when it is all scripted. More low brow toilet humour..

robbiex wrote:
Pretend scenarios where people are pretending to be in real life scenarios, when it is all scripted.


Guiliani was pretending he was alone (in a hotel room) with Borat's 'daughter' - who wasn't in the White House, with zero clearance?

I found it disappointing. He just chose easy targets. It's like a British anti-monarchist only attacking Andrew. The entire American political establishment is deeply corrupt and cynical, so he should have been satirising all of them, not just right wingers. The Democrats spent three years trying to use the law courts to remove Trump, instead of trying to learn from their defeat, then they were reduced to digging up Biden as their new candidate. Christ! That's a political elite that is so entitled, so out of touch and so out of ideas, they should have been mocked just as mercilessly.

robbiex wrote:
middlemas wrote:
SBC's educational history isn't relevant - nor is John Wayne's.

Most movies are fantasies. This one is innovative and conceptional.

Watch it on Amazon Prime already
-- they are no fools, viewing figures are monumental.

In what way is it innovative. Isn't it the same crap we saw in 2006. Pretend scenarios where people are pretending to be in real life scenarios, when it is all scripted. More low brow toilet humour..

I never seen anything with Sacha but clips I have seen seem to appeal to the Lowest Common Denominator of society. Tom Green comes to mind also. The 2000's was not a good decade for films or comedy.

Rick wrote:
He just chose easy targets.


POTUS isn't an easy target - nor the White House or conventions, without accreditation.

Particularly when SBC's face has often been on billboards from Times Square to Cleveland and Santa Barbara.

Hence a new front person (his 'daughter') had to be invented to give these self-important guys what they deserve.

The pandemic lockdown ironically enhanced the opportunities for subterfuge and filming.

And many are wondering will the movie affect the election. Trump is worried!

No Chaplin/Sellers type classic - just a good laugh (in parts) at American pomposity, the gotcha reactions and US unique methodology.