I’ll need a bit more time to think it over, but it might be the funniest movie I’ve ever seen.

Sasha Baron Cohen is the recincarnation of Andy Kaufman, but with an added kick Kaufman never had — Cohen is acutally funny.

He also has huge brass balls. Half the fun of the movie is figuring out who is and isn’t in on the joke. And watching Cohen put himself at considerable physical, legal, and, when all is said and done, probably financial risk — while never straying from character. I’m really hoping some intrepid reporters track down the movies’ rubes over the next few months to find out what happened to them since the movie was released. I could see a couple of people losing their jobs. And one particular University of South Carolina frat guy’s life is pretty much over. Or at least it ought to be after a line like, “This country would be a lot better off if we still had slaves.”

The movie is genius. It’s hillarious, probing, revealing, uncomfortable, and, ultimately, sensitive and sympathetic. In many places, Cohen’s Borat actually plays the straight man, letting the uglier side of America provide the (sometimes funny, sometimes cringe-inducing) entertainment. It’s a tidy mix of high-minded humor and poop jokes, sometimes in the same scene (the dinner party in Georgia, for example. So much going on in that scene).

Then there’s the wrestling scene. Oh my God. I’ve never seen anything like it. I was crying. That scene by itself forged new frontiers in American cinema. Flabby, hairy, musky frontiers.

So see it. But bring your thick skin. And dear God, leave the kids at home.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 3rd, 2006 at 11:44 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.