borat Photo

Borat

Starring: Sacha Baron Cohen

Directed by: Larry Charles

RS: 4of 4 Stars

Sacha Baron Cohen went home without a high-five from Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, despite having created the funniest freaking comedy in ages. Who cares? Borat will make glorious benefit your DVD collection. Sure, it looks like shit -- it's meant to be a documentary done on the cheap by Borat Sagdiyev, a TV reporter from Kazakhstan, and his fat producer, Azamat (the priceless Ken Davitian). Baron Cohen, a Cambridge-educated Brit from a devout Jewish family, makes his own comic revolution by exposing the ignorant, racist, misogynist, gay-bashing, Jew-hating, gun-loving, warmongering heart of America. The DVD lets you relive the hilarity even as it challenges your gag reflex. The ass-to-mouth wrestling match between Borat and Azamat is a definite setback for screen nudity.

EXTRAS For once, the bonus features, here called "Surplus Material," really are a bonus. There are eight deleted scenes, and except for a thin-to-anorexic joke about cheese, they've got a Swiftian sting. In a dog pound, Borat wonders which puppy will make "good companion in sexytime," then asks an attendant to say "shalom" so he can teach his dog to "attack the Jew." On a visit to a doctor, he's shocked to find his STD can't be cured by "drinking soup made from retard boy's pubis." Milking laughs from hype, here called "Propaganda," he cavorts on the beach in a thong and scares Conan O'Brien by pulling out scissors to collect his red pubic hair. Even the stinker trailers that litter DVDs go down easier here, labeled coming kazakhstan in 2008. Get this DVD. It's a keeper.