“Borat Subsequent Moviefilm,” is a sequel to the 2006 comedy classic, “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.” Shot late this year, on a whim, by star Sacha Baron Cohen, the film has our fictional Kazakh character, now a celebrity, trying to hide from the public in various different costumes. Much like the original, there are pranks involving abortion clinics, right-wing rallies. but this time around even Trump consiglieres such Rudy Giuliani and Mike Pence get swept up in the action.
Much like the first film, this is shot mockumentary-style, Borat is still very much the anti-Semitic television personality, but if the former was a film of and for its moment, with a Bush-whacked America craving to be exposed, now, in the age of the internet, the exposures in “Subsequent Moviefilm” just aren’t as shocking, there isn’t anything revelatory about its findings. Add in the fact that it feels rather rushed, for streaming purposes, no doubt to influence the upcoming election in some way shape, or form, and the result turns out to be a tad too underwhelming and-familiar.
In fact, “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” has lost all of the unpredictable OMG what-will-happen-next magic of the original. This isn’t the “great success” it’s titular subject believes it to be. — it’s a “great shame”, not just for the nation of Kazakhstan but American audiences as well.
Beginning 14 years after the original, Borat, ecstatic about the presidency of “MacDonald Trump”, is sent by the ministry of Kazakhstan to the U.S. to bribe “pussyhound” Mike Pence with his country’s glorious national Monkey. Borat wants Pence to help his country return it its former glory, after all, as he says, Trump is friendly with great world leaders such as Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, and Jair Bolsonaro, why wouldn’t he cuddle up to another “authoritarian” dictator? The plan, of course, goes off the rails, it doesn’t help that Borat’s neglected and caged daughter sneaks into the monkey box, eating the primate on the long voyage to the States, and then offers herself as a prostituted gift to Pence (she wants to be just like Melania and live in a “golden cage”).
There is no Azamat Bagatov (Ken Davitian) in ‘Subsequent Moviefilm',’ he is replaced by Borat’s aforementioned daughter, Tutar Sagdiyev (Maria Balakova), and the absence is felt throughout. If Azamat was a worthy sidekick partner to Borat, Tutar turns out to be, mostly, a dud. She is used in a tepid father/daughter tale, not to mention semi-funny, but obvious gags about abortion, racism, sexism, homophobia, and such.
Not to mention, a cringe-worthy, piece-de-resistance interview with the former mayor of NYC Rudy Giuliani which has all of the hallmarks of a blatant setup — take an attractive 24-year-old actress, pretend she’s a reporter, put her in a room all alone with a major political figure, have her be very touchy and flirty with him and expose the fact that … he takes the bait? I don’t get it. Add in the fact that this sequel uses manipulative editing techniques to try and convince us of things that just aren’t there — it’s not just the Giuliani sequence, but in some of the other pranks that Cohen attempts to hide what actually happened via edits. What you have is a movie too desperate to find an identity, too obsessed in its attempt to depict what isn’t there, it’s, actually, st times, all-too-embarrassing to watch.
Maybe the off-putting tone of this film, blandly directed by Jason Woliner, resides in the fact that Borat fit much better in the bygone world of Bush-era authoritarianism and that he just doesn’t seem as relevant in today’s social media-obsessed, Trump-deranged surroundings. There is nothing new to expose here. Even though the original was released just 14 years ago, so much has changed in our society, not much can actually be exposed, it’s all there in the barrage of in-your-face information being thrown at us on a daily, hell hourly, basis. Sadly, the shock-effect that made this character illuminating to millions of Americans is no longer there. It’s as though we’ve just become numb to it all. [C+]
“Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” will be able to stream via Amazon Prime Video on October 23.
Gunn has previously called Batman his “biggest issue” in the DCU and spoken at length about how difficult it is to develop a version of the character that feels distinct enough from Reeves’ vision.