Borat Subsequent Moviefilm review: Plenty of cringes but no real laughs

Sacha Baron Cohen’s new Borat movie premieres this week, but those hoping it would deliver the same level of comedic brilliance as its prequel may be sorely disappointed.

Mmmmm. That fellow with his trousers down, improvising an open-air toilet in front of a Donald Trump-owned hotel. He looks kind of familiar, doesn’t he?

There he is again, asking a lady at the cake shop to inscribe the following in dainty frosted icing: “The Jews Will Not Replace Us.”

And is that the same guy offering his daughter as a sacrifice to a baffled US Vice President Mike Pence? Indeed so.

Such flagrantly bizarre behaviour can only fit the profile of “the number four investigative journalist in all of Kazakhstan” – the incomparable Borat Sagdiyev.

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm premieres Friday in Australia on Amazon Prime Video. Picture: Supplied/ Twitter

The initial sighting of Borat on the big screen in 2006 has proven to be a hard act to follow in more ways than one.

Shot by stealth with British funnyman Sacha Baron Cohen posing as the twistedly inquisitive reporter from far eastern Europe, that first movie was utterly unlike anything seen before.

Audiences just couldn’t get enough of Cohen’s sheer audacity when it came to duping over-cooperative and under-aware rednecks all over America.

A monster $350 million take at the global box-office for a low-budget, mock-shock doco still speaks for itself.

Now, some 14 years later, Cohen has returned to the scene of his most infamous and lucrative comedy crime.

British funnyman Sacha Baron Cohen returns 14 years after the initial sighting of Borat on the big screen. Picture: Amazon Studios

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm features limited interaction with ‘real’ people. Picture: Amazon Studios

Unfortunately, the long-awaited sequel Borat Subsequent Moviefilm never rises to the hilarious heights scaled by its groundbreaking predecessor.

The most obvious problem holding back the production was always going to be tough to fix.

Are there really that many people left on the planet who wouldn’t spot the ingratiatingly inappropriate Borat as a fake from the moment they saw him?

Try as they might, Cohen and his satirical conspirators (which includes a team of eight credited writers – surely a number that takes the edge off the ‘reality’ supposedly in play here) fail to find the right solution.

Borat’s limited interactions with ‘real’ people – most notably, a week spent in a rustic shack with some Trump-supporting woodsmen – often have a faintly rehearsed feel to them.

Disguising Borat under a welter of mullet wigs, bulbous noses and padded bellies just doesn’t cut it, either.

Throughout the film, Borat is disguised under a welter of mullet wigs, bulbous noses and padded bellies. But it just doesn’t cut it. Picture: Amazong Studios

Cohen’s new film brings on plenty of cringes, but rarely draws any genuine laughter, Leigh Paatsch writes. Picture: Amazon Studios

Not even when he leads a singalong for militant Republicans, imploring them to inject the opposition “with the Wuhan Flu, or chop ‘em up like the Saudis do!”

Then there is the divisive figure of Borat’s teenage daughter Tutar (played by unknown Bulgarian actress Maria Bakalova).

This new character is used as a ‘Trojan Horse’ to get the movie’s cameras into the places that Cohen-as-Borat’s notoriety would have prevented.

It is Tutar that gets Borat (poorly camouflaged inside a fat suit and a Trump mask) within shouting range of Pence for a fizzer of a stunt at the conservative convention CPAC 2020.

While Tutar does end up anchoring what will become Subsequent Moviefilm’s most controversial scene – in which a close associate of President Donald Trump can be seen on a hotel bed with his hand down his pants – she is also present for the movie’s unfunniest sequences.

Scenes capturing mega-awkward father-daughter visits to an anti-abortion clinic, a breast-enlargement specialist and a debutante ball (the movie’s absolute low point) certainly bring on the cringes, but rarely draw any genuine laughter.

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm premieres Friday in Australia on Amazon Prime Video.

Originally published as Borat Subsequent Moviefilm review: Plenty of cringes but no real laughs