Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2020)

Directed by: Jason Woliner | 95 minutes | comedy | Actors: Sacha Baron Cohen, Maria Bakalova

Where Borat Sagdiyev explored the American frontier of anti-Semitism in ‘Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan’ in 2006 with unadulterated satire, ‘Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan’ will of course be taken from another barrel.

The bar is set high, because Sacha Baron Cohen’s character Borat is world famous. From a mouse-grey ill-fitting suit with ugly tie from the 80s as a carnival outfit to the bright green mankini selfies on Hersonissos, everyone knows who you mean when you talk about the mustachioed gullible journalist from Kazakhstan. To go back to America fourteen years later to shoot a new mockumentary, you have to come from good houses. After all, Borat is immediately recognized. And that happened.

The solution is as simple as it is brilliant. The character disguises himself as a new character without breaking out of his role. Add an accomplice to that and the dress up box can open again. Borat turns out to have a young daughter and, blackmailed by the Kazakh Ministry of Agriculture, she is perfect for trading to influential American politicians of retirement age, isn’t she?

Thank God for Donald Trump! Trump is a rewarding subject as the target of a divided American landscape that the rest of the world is watching with suspicion. Along with director Jason Woliner who is at home in genres of awkward humor such as ‘The Last Man on Earth’ and ‘Saturday Night Live’, British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen (‘Brüno’, ‘Hugo’, ‘Les Misérables’) gold in their hands again with this sequel.

All the trending topics of recent times such as Covid-19, fake news, conspiracy theories, abortion, plastic surgery, Holocaust denial and a touch of #Metoo have been expertly addressed by Borat and his daughter Tutar. Their opponents, including Mike Pence, did not know – according to good Kazakh custom – that they were being cheated. Borat is the epitome of awkwardness and ambiguity, which Rudolf “Rudy” Giuliani (former New York City mayor and Trump’s attorney) mercilessly fell prey to with a hint of #MeToo on his part. When he learned the true facts of his interview with the flirtatious 15-year-old journalist Tutar, played by the Bulgarian actress Maria Bakalova (“Gomorrah”, “Jimmy Kimmel Live”), Rudy went to the police and hurled his alleged innocence per Tweet. into the world.

Baron Cohen’s brilliant sequel is again a very nice mix of activism and humor and that humor has never been so indispensable in 2020. The world is on fire, but how we laughed!