BORAT SUBSEQUENT MOVIE FILM: DELIVERY OF PRODIGIOUS BRIBE TO AMERICAN REGIME FOR MAKE BENEFIT ONCE GLORIOUS NATION OF KAZAKHSTAN
Amazon Prime Video, 3:00 a.m. ET
What a month for Sacha Baron Cohen. First he co-stars as Abbie Hoffman in Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7, and now he returns as his most famous cinematic character, Borat, in a movie sequel to that 2006 comedy classic, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Director Larry Charles, who helped shape that original Borat movie, is not here for this one – he’s replaced by Jason Woliner – but this Borat sequel follows both the structure and the boldness of the first film. You’ve probably heard already that Rudy Giuliani is one of the high-profile people pranked by Cohen and his cohorts in this new movie. Mike Pence is another. But both those celebrity sequences are outdone by ones involving regular American citizens. These range from the unexpectedly tender (which you wouldn’t expect from a setup that begins like a bad joke: “Borat walks into a synagogue…”) to the outrageously mortifying (choose from several). Cohen is a fearless and funny improv artist – and he’s aided here by young Bulgarian actress Maria Bakalova, who’s more than a match for Cohen. And, pretending to be a TV interviewer from a foreign country, for Giuliani (pictured). The whole movie is spellbinding, bravely amusing – and, at the end, amazingly timely.