Borat Subsequent Moviefilm 2020
The first Borat movie caused a big sensation, but was more outrageous than funny, though it had some charms. In 2020, a new sensation happened as this movie features footage of Rudy Giuliani behaving possibly in an inappropriate way with an actress posing as a reporter. Honestly, the stuff Giuliani says about China intentionally spreading Coronavirus around the world is more outrageous than his behavior. Since Borat is now easily recognized, Sacha Baron Cohen uses other disguises to do similar things as the first movie. There are a few bright spots, but mostly it is kind of tired. The producers set up pieces by telling people they are filming some kind of documentary, so the people are sort of in on it, taking away from some of the candid camera aspects that make it work at its best. Also, rather than just show a series of setups, they try to attach a plot which is mostly dumb and just burns time as the actors do rehearsed scenes. There is a lot of gross out humor that is more gross than humorous, though every now and then it can work. There is also a definite tendency to go after Trump Republicans, which, combined with the release in October ahead of the election, make this seem like a sales pitch that can be made better with reasoned arguments. The more interesting part of the movie, missing from watching it on Amazon, would be some of the behind the scenes footage and outtakes (like having to be evacuated from a gun rights rally in an ambulance to get away from angry gun-toting attendees). For me, that was what brought the original DVD up from a B-. However without that, and with generally fewer real people setups, this movie is worse, so maybe a C-.
Written: 24 Dec 2020