Cinema Feature

Given the year we are having, it’s high time we get to watch a movie where a deranged reporter from Kazakhstan offers up his young daughter as a gift to a publicly speaking, sour-pussed Mike Pence while wearing a Trump costume. I dunno…just sort of feels like the right kind of shitshow-encapsulating madness we could all use in deep 2020.

Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm is a fine continuation of the madness Sasha Baron Cohen unleashed on the world with his original film 14 years ago. (That’s right…14 YEARS AGO. Can you believe that shit?) This time out, instead of driving an ice cream truck with a big hairy guy and a bear in it, Borat is trekking across the country with his 15-year-old daughter (a very funny Maria Bakalova) in tow.

This, of course, presents an entirely different dynamic, as Borat doesn’t know his “not a son” well, and has difficulty treating her with respect and allowing her to live outside of a cage. Somehow, Cohen and director Jason Woliner manage to make their antics not only disgustingly funny, but awkwardly heartwarming. There's a duped babysitter in the film who gives Borat's daughter some pretty solid advice, and shares one of the movie's funniest moments near the end. The babysitter is great. She's like a modern American hero. Shit, this might just be the feel-good movie of the year.

This is more of the same—Borat exposing the ugly, dumbo racist underbelly of America—and that’s good thing. While the previous film’s big moment was a staged (and hilarious) sequence with Pamela Anderson, the sequel’s big moments are unrehearsed and unbelievable in that he actually pulled them off.

The previously mentioned encounter with Pence is just a warmup for the big kahuna; that would be Rudy Giuliani thinking he is going to get sexy time with Borat’s daughter during a hotel room interview. (Note to all public figures: NEVER ACCEPT A HOTEL ROOM AS A SETTING FOR AN INTERVIEW YOU DUMB ASSES!) Giuliani goes from gross, touchy feely patronizing during the fake interview with Bakalova and walks straight into the hotel bedroom. His excuse for touching his thang in the woman’s presence (to be clear, the actress is in her 20s and never states her make-believe age) is that he was tucking in his shirt.

I don’t know when cupping your balls and grabbing your dick became synonymous with tucking in your shirt. Rudy’s a lawyer, maybe he knows more about it. Maybe there’s some statute or writ or whatever somewhere that declares ball cupping and rapid shaft massaging are essential to tucking in one’s shirt on film. Godamn idiot.