Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I. Can. Not. Wait. To. See. This. Fucking. Movie. That is all.

Hi Quint,

First time writing to you. Go to see BORAT: CULTURAL LEARNINGS OF AMERICA FOR MAKE BENEFIT GLORIOUS NATION OF KAZAKHSTAN at the Irish Film Institute in Dublin on Saturday night (they did a free screening to attract new members). Thought you might like to have another look at it following the Torento screenings.

I first encountered Borat via the Ali G Show that aired on CHannel 4 in the UK. Initially, he was a character that gave relif from the main act, probably to give the show some sort of balence, a counter punch to Ali G's well known approch to guerilla interviewing. At the time of the Ali G show in the UK, he had become almost a self parody. The film ALI G INDAHOUSE was proof of this: a totally fictional story, with nothing to base it on the act that had preceded it. I wasn't a fan of this film (even tough it did give a few belly laughs) mainly because of this detraction from what made that character in the first place. This was my main fear of BORAT: CULTURAL LEARNINGS OF AMERICA FOR MAKE BENEFIT GLORIOUS NATION OF KAZAKHSTAN.

BORAT is an hour and a few minutes of pure comedy gold. Why? Because it plays to the character's strenghts. It does have a direct narrative (which without it would have become a horrible mess of "moments"), but it also plays to what Borat does best: exhibiting the outright stupidity, moronic and debase nature of the people he meets. You've probably read what the main story entails, so I won't tread over it again. Save to say that the payoff the the end of the film is both shocking and brilliant (not to mention hilarious). However, the total worth of this film is in the obscure road trip that takes him from New York to California via a whole screwed-up sector of Americana.

There is a sense in some cases that some of the "moments" in the film are done for pure shock/hilarity (depending on your own tastes). Case in point: Borat taking a dump in front of Trump Towers, letting a live chicken loose on the New York metro, or inviting a prostitute to a high-socirty dinner. However, all these events feed from one to the next to make it into a single thread.

There is a slight slump in the film, near the mid-section, where the story needs to take a turn to put Borat in a state where he can't find his way home, or see the end of his goal. This, it could be said, is necessary for the film to work as one whole, but feels laboured. Like in ALI G INDAHOUSE, the film weighs under the pressure of providing a linear story and begins to fall into itself. The result puts Borat back onto his path, but these events don't flow as other parts of the film before or after it. To be honest, I'm disecting it too much. Borat's "ephphany" is still gut-wrenchingly funny, but you do feel like they ventured into story-land a step more then they needed.

Overall, the final result is still the funniest film I've seen (discounting LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE) for a long while. I really don't know how it will go down in some sections (feminists, Jews, homophobics, christians, and plain idiots get a bad rap, mostly deserved), but these people are so extreme that it's hard to imagine how anyone could find it offensive. I laughed from beginning to end.

If you use this, call me krodnoc.

Jagshemash!