Sign up to The Irish Times Archive (1859 - 2008)My Account »

Fri 11 Nov 2006Out of SteppesReviewed - Borat: Cultural learnings of America for make benefit glorious nation of Kazakhstan: Make good joke, yes? Borat is an uproarious satire of middle American mores and values as seen through the eyes of a dimwitted foreigner, writes Michael Dwyer.JAM-packed with visual and verbal gags from start to finish, and entirely unencumbered by such incidentals as good taste, this uproarious, politically incorrect farce stars Sacha Baron Cohen in an impishly oversized performance as Borat Sagdiyev, the Kazakhstan TV reporter he created on TV in Da Ali G Show. The production values are as cheap and cheerful as in Cohen's earlier cinema vehicle, Ali G Indahouse, but Borat is altogether spikier and funnier.