By Greg Roitbourd
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Borat Subsequent MovieFilm is a horrifyingly brilliant commentary on modern American politics and culture. Sacha Baron Cohen’s use of our favorite Kazakh reporter persona to mock Americans in this sequel was a perfect way to critique the election before it even happened! To those reading this who still have not watched this movie on Amazon Prime, this is a spoiler warning. Please, before reading this article, watch the film. This movie picks up 14 years after the first Borat, where Borat Sagdiyev is released from gulag, which he was put in for making Kazakhstan a global laughingstock after the premiere of his first movie. He is given a mission by the country’s Premier to present the Minister of Culture, Johnny the Monkey, to Mike Pence, and in turn Donald Trump, in hopes of Kazakhstan receiving praise. Before his departure, Borat is injected with “g*psy tears” for good luck. However, Borat runs into two problems. One is that he is easily recognized in America because of the “great success” of his first movie. The second problem is that his 15-year-old daughter Tutar, who he did not know existed, wants to follow him to America to meet Melania Trump. He decides to solve his problems by leaving Tutar in Kazakhstan, and wearing disguises, as well as using outdated forms of communication to sneak around without being recognized, though he does end up getting a phone. Borat arrives in America to discover Tutar ate Johnny the Monkey, so he decides to deliver her to Pence, as a bride, instead. After a long series of events, Borat and Tutar bond and begin to understand each other more, which makes Borat stray from his mission. Together, they go back to Kazakhstan only to find out during a meeting, that the Premier’s actual mission wasn’t to fix relations with the rest of the world, but to get revenge on America by spreading COVID-19, a genetically engineered virus made by Kazakh scientists. Borat was actually patient zero, and spread COVID-19 across the world on his way to the US, and was injected with the disease instead of the “g*psy tears” for good luck. Little did the Premier know, Borat had been face-timing with his phone consultant at the same time as his meeting with the Premier, which he and Tutar used as blackmail to change Kazakhstan’s bigoted laws. Throughout the movie, SBC also makes sure to keep the same goal as the first movie: to make fun of American people. During multiple points in the film, Maria Bakalova, the actress who plays Tutar, and Cohen have run-ins with many American officials in the White House, such as Mike Pence and Rudy Giuliani. They also encounter other bystanders, like a phone technician, a plastic surgeon, an Instagram influencer, a few QAnon believers, and many others. Other famous people were supposed to appear in the film like Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Sid Miller, but their scenes were cut. All in all, this movie was a rollercoaster. The plot was enjoyable, and the intermediate interactions with Americans were hilarious. At different points of the movie, I expected SBC and Bakalova to break character in laughter, but they kept it together really well. I’d say this movie was a solid 9/10, which is shocking due to its status as a sequel.
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