Product Description

Sacha Baron Cohen brings his Kazakh journalist character Borat Sagdiyev to the big screen for the first time. Leaving his native Kazakhstan, Borat travels to America to make a documentary. As he zigzags across the nation, Borat meets real people in real situations with hysterical consequences. His backwards behavior generates strong reactions around him exposing prejudices and hypocrisies in American culture.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1010 in DVD
• Brand: COHEN,SACHA BARON
• Released on: 2007-03-06
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: Armenian, English, Hebrew, Polish, Romanian
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Dubbed in: French
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds
• Running time: 84 minutes

Amazon.com

It takes a certain kind of comic genius to create a character who is, to quote the classic Sondheim lyric, appealing and appalling. But be forewarned: Borat is not "something for everyone." It arrives as advertised as one of the most outrageous, most offensive, and funniest films in years. Kazakhstan journalist Borat Sagdiyev (Sacha Baron Cohen reprising the popular character from his Da Ali G Show), leaves his humble village to come to "U.S. and A" to film a documentary. After catching an episode of Baywatch in his New York hotel room, he impulsively scuttles his plans and, accompanied by his fat, hirsute producer (Hardy to his Laurel), proceeds to California to pursue the object of his obsession, Pamela Anderson. Borat is not about how he finds America; it's about how America finds him in a series of increasingly cringe-worthy scenes. Borat, with his '70s mustache, well-worn grey suit, and outrageously backwards attitudes (especially where Jews are concerned) interacts with a cross-section of the populace, catching them, a la Alan Funt on Candid Camera, in the act of being themselves. Early on, an unwitting humor coach advises Borat about various types of jokes. Borat asks if his brother's retardation is a ripe subject for comedy. The coach patiently replies, "That would not be funny in America." NOT! Borat is subversively, bracingly funny. When it comes to exploring uncharted territory of what is and is not appropriate or politically correct, Borat knows no boundaries, as when he brings a fancy dinner with the southern gentry to a halt after returning from the bathroom with a bag of his feces ("The cultural differences are vast," his hostess graciously/patronizingly offers), or turns cheers to boos at a rodeo when he calls for bloodlust against the Iraqis and mangles "The Star Spangled Banner."

Success, John F. Kennedy once said, has a thousand fathers. A paternity test on Borat might reveal traces of Bill Dana's Jose Jimenez, Andy Kaufman, Michael Moore, The Jamie Kennedy Xperiment, and Jackass. Some scenes seem to have been staged (a game Anderson, whom Borat confronts at a book signing, was reportedly in on the setup), but others, as the growing litany of lawsuits attests, were not. All too real is Borat's encounter with loutish Southern frat boys who reveal their sexism and racism, and the disturbing moment when he asks a gun store owner what gun he would recommend to "kill a Jew" (a Glock automatic is the matter-of-fact reply). Comedy is not pretty, and in Borat it can get downright ugly, as when Borat and his producer get jiggly with it during a nude fight that spills out from their hotel room into the hallway, elevator, lobby and finally, a mortgage brokers association banquet. High-five! --Donald Liebenson

On the DVD
"Global Visitings" captures Borat-mania in all its hype and glory, as Sacha Baron Cohen, never breaking character, promotes his film around the world. On the itinerary is Late Night with Conan O'Brien and the Toronto Film Festival, a now-legendary screening aborted after a projector malfunction. A mixed bag of deleted scenes finds Borat trying to bait more unsuspecting citizens, including an animal-control worker who refuses Borat a dog after he asks, "How do you recommend I cook this?" and a doctor who is nonplussed by Borat's obscene medical history. A supermarket visit offers the most maddening fromage-inspired looniness since Monty Python's "Cheese Shop" sketch. Also good for a few chuckles are a faux soundtrack commercial and a Baywatch parody ("Sexydangerwatch"). --Donald Liebenson

Beyond Borat

All things Sacha Baron Cohen

Borat Apparel

Borat Soundtrack

Stills from Borat (click for larger image)

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Customer Reviews

An Extremely Un-PC Political Comedy--"Borat" Turns Itself Into The Year's Most Controversial Film
I guess I am shocked at how divisive this film seems to be--it's apparently another in the camp of "love it" or "hate it." I was familiar with Sasha Baron Cohen and the Borat character from HBO's "Da Ali G Show". While I was amused by this reprehensible, yet surprisingly innocent "Kazahstanian," I was skeptical about a full fledged big screen treatment. Turning a comedy skit into a feature movie is a "iffy" proposition, at best. Take a look at almost every Saturday Night Live adaptation for corroboration. I'd have to say, then, that I was pleasantly surprised--Borat is a winner.

Part scripted, partly hidden camera improv, partly "Jackass" tomfoolery--you're never quite sure what is to be believed in "Borat". Some may feel that this limits the film's effectiveness as commentary, but I feel this enhances it's comedic appeal. For there is such unbridled outrageousness to be had in "Borat," it's hard not to be caught up in the spirit. I probably laughed more consistently within the framework of this spare 83 minute film than I have all year. Some of it is dumb humor, to be sure--some of it was shock value or disbelief.

But a large part of the humor comes from real life. By playing the moronic, offensive imbecile--Cohen, and thus Borat, expose a cavalier prejudice, hypocrisy, and/or intolerance that exists within American culture. Whether it's buying a gun to kill Jews, viewing women as sex objects to be violated, or supporting the genocide of our enemies--Borat always finds willing subjects to engage, people who in one way or another identify with these barbaric ideas.

It's tempting to dismiss Borat as offensive nonsense, I know many have already stated that opinion. It might also be tempting for others to embrace "Borat" as one of the more unapologetic and politically relevant films in quite some time. But I don't think it is attempting anything quite so significant--and that, in truth, may be it's greatest success. It walks the line unlike any other film in recent memory. It has elicited much love from fans and major critics and much hatred from it's detractors. This power to provoke such passion, such debate--be it feelings, emotions, thoughts, ideas--that is the film's crowning achievement. This crazy little film is not only one of the year's funniest films, it has also become one of the year's most talked about. Who can argue with that? KGHarris, 11/06.

DVD packaging.... INGENIOUS
Ok, I haven't even played this DVD yet. I saw the film twice in the theaters, and I think enough has been said about it on here...


***May contain spoilers***




But let me say that when I got my Borat DVD in the mail today (how I love Amazon deliveries the day DVDs are available - and with super saver shipping no less) I was a little confused. I opened the package, and found a DVD covered by your usual sleeve promoting its highlights like any other you might buy in the US. Then, I eagerly slipped the plastic-covered DVD out of the sleeve, turned it over to read the back, started reading and wait... what? or rather, CHTO? because the entire DVD cover is in Russian.

Now, I read Russian. And I have purchased pirated DVDs for $2 at Moscow metro stations because that is pretty much what you do when you're in Russia. So the fact that I examined this DVD case for a good 5 minutes, opened it to find what looks like a DVD-R disc with "Borat" labeled in permanent marker and seriously considered the possibility that somehow a pirated DVD had been sent by Amazon... finally, of course, I realized that the whole thing was a joke. Possibly even funnier to me than any single joke in the film. The giveaway was the single slip of paper inside promoting more films you can buy from the US and A that are legal in kazakhstan...

Anyway. Now all I have to do is go to Russia and purchase an ACTUAL pirated version to compare!

The DVD should be purchased for the uncanny packaging alone, but I guess I have ruined the surprise...

A Fun House Reflection on American Culture
Recommended to those who enjoy irreverent humor, BORAT tells the story of two journalists from the fictionalized nation of Kazakhstan who travel to the US to film a documentary about life in the States. Partially scripted with professional actors and partially filmed guerilla-style with regular people, it stars Sacha Baron Cohen and Ken Davitian.

A buddy film that documents a cross-country odyssey from New York to Los Angeles, the story veers off the road, when Borat finds a photo of "Pah-may-la" Anderson at a yard sale and decides to make the Baywatch star his bride.

Critically acclaimed and wildly popular at the box office, BORAT will nonetheless never be made into a sequel, thanks to the hundreds - if not thousands of lawsuits - it inspired. Still it is definitely worth seeing if not for the humor then for the revealing sociological window it offers into American culture.

Like a fun house mirror that exaggerates anything that stands before it, the Borat character succeeds in provoking and poking fun at both the stereotypically naïve American characters who appear in the film and those who watch and review it.

Whatever the unfortunate personality quirk is, Borat, like a caricature artist, is a genius at uncovering and magnifying it - which is undoubtedly why this is the film that launched a thousand lawsuits. From the misogynistic, anti-Semitic frat boys and the homophobic rodeo director to the perfectly polite Southern socialites who eventually call the police to have Borat removed from their dinner party, no one is safe from ridicule - not even the film's reviewers, many of whom use the occasion to indulge in middle-American bashing.

Before I saw the film I could easily understand why politicians in Kazakhstan would be upset by a movie that misrepresents and makes fun of their nation. But after seeing it, I realize that BORAT plays the same fun house prank on Kazakhstan that it pulls on the US, by provoking this huge Eurasian country to ban the film from ever showing there.

In the spirit of "I had to kill him because he falsely called me a murderer," BORAT inspires America's self-flagellating, intolerance of intolerance and Kazakhstan's ban on the film in protest of being portrayed as a dictatorship where people have few if any natural rights.

One last thought: if I were one of the horrendous frat boys who appeared in this movie, I'd be too busy getting appearance-altering plastic surgery or a personality transplant to bother suing the filmmakers.

-- Regina McMenamin