No movie can survive being reviewed as "the funniest ever." Satisfaction with entertainment is as much a function of expectations as it is the excellence of the product itself. And the gushing critics using such rhetoric raise the standard to an impossibly high level and do a great disservice to the objects of their adoration.
Despite knowing this in advance, my expectations were summarily raised and I still saw "Borat." And guess what - it's not the funniest movie ever. (Dumb and Dumber retains the title - sorry for ruining that movie experience for all of you who've not yet seen it). But even without the press ruining the freshness and surprise of this film, it wouldn't have been the funniest ever.
It certainly is amusing at times, especially any time a chicken is involved. But it is essentially a one joke movie. A guy pretending to be a backward foreigner doing really strange things (basically an X-rated Latka Gravas) and a film crew ambushing ordinary people as they react to it. These "real" documentary-style scenes are interspersed with set-ups where the reactions are as scripted and staged as the premise. Even the non-scripted reactions shots are heavily edited for effect, so the documentary aspect of the film is questionable throughout. Since the humor is often times based on these supposed real reactions by people, the movie too often devolves into manipulative, cheap shot Michael Moore comedy.
Ultimately, it loses its steam because there's only so many times you can see a guy do variations of "I'm 'a not from your 'a country, are you a' supposed to wear pants to the grocery store?" before you start looking at your watch. Even at 89 minutes, it feels too long.
I wasn't alone in my lukewarm reaction. There wasn't a lot of laughter from anyone in the crowd in the theater where I saw it. The fact that it was a sparse crowd (about 20 people at a weekday matinee) may have added to the less than riotous experience. Crowds take on their own pack mentality and its easier for individuals to bust out in guffaws when others who have been sufficiently primed are reinforcing this behavior. Jack-knifing with laughter carries much higher potential social costs in a quiet room. Lest ye be judged and shunned, your explosions of laughter better be an involuntary reaction based on the stimulus from the screen. And Borat doesn't have enough to bring it.
"Funniest ever" might have different meanings for different people though. Surveying the reviews of those whose who raved about the film reveals what really turns their crank about Borat.
From Rolling Stone:
As Borat Sagdiyev, a visitor from Kazakhstan, Sacha Baron Cohen is a balls-out comic revolutionary, right up there with Lenny Bruce, Andy Kaufman, Dr. Strangelove, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Cartman at exposing the ignorant, racist, misogynist, gay-bashing, Jew-hating, gun-loving, warmongering heart of America.
From MSNBC:
Not only one the funniest movies ever made, but also one of the smartest.
Borat inadvertently exposes the bigotry, misogyny and hypocrisy that continues to afflict the nation well into the 21st Century.
It?s an instant comedy classic that needs to be seen more than once in an effort to get all the jokes, but it also has a lot to say in terms of how far we have to go to rid the country of bigotry.
From Entertainment Weekly:
. . . the people Borat talks to become the symbolic heart of America -- a place where intolerance is worn, increasingly, with pride.
It sounds like they saw a different movie than I did. And it sounds like they live in a different country than I do. Per usual with critics of this ilk, their reviews tell you more about them than about the what their criticizing. Their revealed perception of what the heart of America really looks like should be kept in mind before trusting them on any other movie Rolling Stone or Entertainment Weekly raves about or pans in the future.
Regarding all this alleged racism and intolerance exposed in the movie, I think Christopher Hitchens had the best comment in his review of Borat. Excerpts:
Oh, come on. Among the "cultural learnings of America for make benefit glorious nation of Kazakhstan" is the discovery that Americans are almost pedantic in their hospitality and politesse.
The joke may well be on the prankster. I thought the same about Da Ali G Show. As far as one can tell, most youth culture is as inarticulate and illiterate and mannerless as Sacha Baron Cohen made it out to be: The elderly dupes who did their best to respond (Gen. Brent Scowcroft on the anthrax/Tampax distinction being the most notable) were evidently resigned in advance to quite a low standard of questioning. You can see the same fixed expressions on the faces of politicians when they attend a "real" event, like Rock the Vote, where wry, likable smiles are obligatory, and the only dread is that of appearing uncool.
But it's that attitude of painfully maintained open-mindedness and multiculturalism that is really being unmasked and satirized by our man from the 'stan. In what other country could such a character talk his way into being invited to sing the national anthem at a rodeo?where the horse urine is not so highly prized, and where horse excrement, and indeed all excrement, is still a term of abuse?
No comments:
Post a Comment