MikePadgett.com

Borat

— It's sexy time: Sacha Baron Cohen's bumbling reporter bursts onto the big screen.”

• Director: Larry Charles
• United States, 2006
• 

The ingenuous Kazakh reporter Borat Sagdiyev has been known to us since Sacha Baron Cohen’s earliest appearances on The 11 O’Clock Show. However, capitalising on the briefest gasp of Hollywood perestroika, the range and skill evident in Cohen’s development of character and conceit is nothing less than breathtaking.

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (to give the full title) is a terrific comedy, but few could have declared themselves ready for its critical aspects, hugely magnified by the longer format.

For in our current times, Borat turns out to be every bit as important as it is funny, a frequently queasy look at the attitudes and beliefs swept under the carpet of a so-called civilised society.