2020 In Review: Borat Subsequent Movie Film

  Because nothing says 2020 quite like the image of Rudy  Giuliani with his hands down his pants


* * * * *

In both the midst of the deadly Coronavirus pandemic, and at the height of the still loud and very orange election of U.S. & A, the surprise comedy of 2020 happened to tackle both of these sensitive topics with a more shocking yet satisfying ease that American moviegoers (or are we movie-streamers now?) had not experienced since that two-week period early in the year when Joe Exotic had become the most recognized reality TV household name since Honey Boo-Boo, and that comedy was a Borat sequel, nevertheless.

Surprise-dropping on Amazon Prime at the end of October, iconic as he was obnoxious, America's favorite (and for many, only) Kazakhstan tourist had returned to America in just enough time to ruffle the feathers of Rudy Giuliani in Borat: Subsequent Movie Film (originally and more comically titled Boroat: Gift of Pornographic Monkey to Vice Premiere Mikhael Pence to Make Benefit Recently Dimished Nation of Kazakhstan), and good Lord was this movie something.

Of course no one in 2020 had been asking for something as insensitive as a fucking Borat sequel of all things (especially fourteen years after the original), but with self aware poking at how poorly the Borat character has aged over the last decade-and-a-half (the character's jokes against females are shut down pretty quickly), the film somehow does a remarkable job at being progressive while still being a standard, belligerent Borat movie that America has come to cherish. By boasting Borat as an ignorant, pro-Trump patriot, Sacha Baron Cohen holds his own in the way we expect him to. In arguably the highlight of the film, Borat follows a friendly pair of rednecks in a right-wing protest, as he dons a hillbilly disguise to sing a "Wuhan Flu" country tune to a crowd of Trumpets, and that's only a fraction of the madness.

Despite Cohen's effortless talents (risking arrest and death threats), it's ironically the character of Borat's fifteen-year-old daughter Tutar who ends up being the shining star, played with tremendous comedic force by newcomer Matia Bakalova, who commits to nearly just as much lunacy as Cohen. With evolving themes of father-daughter relationships to female empowerment, highlighted by a tender scene between Tutar and nanny Jeanise Jones who gives golden, unscripted advice to young women everywhere, Borat SMF ironically ends on a rather touching note, but not before pulling the rug from under the audience with a shocking and culturally relevant ending which ties all the catastrophe that is 2020 together in a big, unexpected, very nice! bow.


*10 points to Bakalova 

Grade: B

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