Review: ‘Borat’ braves the big screen with absurd humor

Directed by: Les Charles

Starring: Sacha Baron Cohen

Rated: R

“Death is easy. Comedy is hard.”

The adage has been a touchstone for comedians since that time when one caveman said to the other (after finally cornering dinner), “I thought you brought the club.”

If comedy itself is truly hard, “absurdist” comedy surely makes death the easier road to travel.

Not since (or even before, for that matter) Andy Kaufman played the congas while singing utter gibberish on “Saturday Night Live,” pantomimed the “Howdy Doody” theme, became a professional wrestler or starred on “Taxi” – all done without ever breaking character – has absurdist humor been so precisely delivered as it is in “Borat.”

“The Man Show” – and the little wise-mouthed fat kid who started out with his beer stand – came close, as did David Letterman’s “men on the street” reporters. Larry David’s HBO series “Curb Your Enthusiasm” is in the same league, and lately Christopher Guest’s films “Waiting for Guffman,” “Best in Show” and “A Mighty Wind” have nurtured those starving for this kind of fun.

Being a fan of this kind of humor, I’m sorry to have missed Sacha Baron Cohen’s HBO series, “Da Ali G Show,” where Kazakhstani newsman Borat Sagdiyev was introduced.

It’s Cohen – backed by a team of TV comedy veterans – who brings utterly absurd, politically incorrect and laugh-out-loud humor back to theater screens with his pseudo cinéma vérité piece “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.”

For those who take themselves all too seriously, this film will prove to be a piece of work that deserves a headline spot on “Fox and Friends.”

Imagine the vacuous Edie Hill asking Cohen (or Borat Sagdiyev), “Why do you think ‘The Running of the Jew’ episode in your film is funny?”

Sagdiyev will point her to the piece in his film where he shops at an American gun store and asks the proprietor, “Which gun is better to kill Jew?” The owner happily gives Sagdiyev more than one suggestion. Hill will still not understand, and I’m sure she still wonders why Kaufman gave up his comedic career for professional wrestling.

I guess it should be pointed out that Sacha Baron Cohen is Jewish, and the biting satire and scurrilous attacks in the film are directed at just about everyone. Any corner that might decry the film as being anti-Semitic should be dealt with as being anti-Comedic.

There is no point in going through the plot of the film, the joke is either understood or not in the first 30 seconds.

I love this kind of humor, and Cohen’s fearless pursuit of achieving his ends indeed reminds me of Kaufman. He’s not breathing the rarified laughing gas that Kaufman enjoyed on a regular basis, but pointing that out is like criticizing a guitar player for not being Jimi Hendrix.

If there’s any criticism to be made, it is that while the content of “Borat” is beyond reproach, its “movieness” (tip of the hat to Stephen Colbert) leaves something to be desired.

Borat’s schtick already has been driven home on “Da Ali G Show,” and the Comedy Central TV network has aired a number of shows that feature clips from the movie. Outtakes have also been shown that are funnier than the scenes they are related to in the finished product.

Director Les Charles is a writer/director associated with “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “Cheers.” As a TV veteran, he brings a sensibility that befits the milieu. In order to work as a movie, it’s imperative the film looks like a TV show.

While I must disagree with the promotional material that portends “Borat” to be “the funniest film of all time,” I’ll give it kudos as a very, very funny – and brave – piece of work.

Jim Wunderle owns Wunderle Sound Services and is a Springfield free-lance writer and musician. He can be reached at info@wunderlesound.com.[[In-content Ad]]