Fourteen years after "Borat" was released, Kazakhstan is still furious at the titular journalist for making the country a laughing stock. As Borat is released from the gulag, he is instructed to deliver Johnny the Monkey to Mike Pence in the efforts to redeem their country. As Borat reaches the U.S and A though, he is shocked to find his estranged daughter, Tutar, had ate the monkey and shipped herself in its place. Although at first disgusted, Borat decides to instead offer his daughter to Pence. That's all I will go and say for the plot as the film offers plenty of surprising turns and circumstances that no one will see coming. Aside from the extended narrative structure, the tone and humour is very much the same as it was before. I, again, won't describe the situations he gets himself into, but I will admit that there are plenty of opportunities to laugh. Of course, the only ones that won't be laughing would be the same people who can't stand offensive humour or cringe, same as like the first film. However, I do feel that the film isn't as funny as the first film and I will explain more about why when I talk about the filmmaking.
Sacha Baron Cohen returns to portray Borat as if fourteen years haven't passed at all. He's still oblivious and retains his anti-semitic and misogynist ways, but he's still unusually charming to watch. Although he has these views of life, he still has a heart of gold mainly as he starts to care for his daughter. Once again, the dedication to the role and how he would choose to never break character, even if his character is saying morally wrong things, makes Cohen an undisputed master of comedy. Maria Bakalova as Tutar, the uneducated teenage daughter of Borat, is extremely good, especially for an unknown actress. She works as the perfect foil for both Borat and the unsuspecting bystanders of the film and goes through a nice little arc of her discovering her independence and rights as a woman. While her performance is great and one of the surprising aspects of the film, the issue is that her inclusion comes with a cliched story of her relationship between her and Borat. I will explain the issue about it more in the filmmaking segment, but the character of Tutar in general is great. The last fictional character to mention would be the fictionalized portrayal of Premier Nazarbayev, played by Dani Popescu. He's basically played up as a cliched dictator role, but considering the entire joke of how the country is portrayed, it works fine for the movie. Much like the first film, the majority of characters and people are portrayed by non-actors with genuine reactions. While there was a mix of normal people and politically incorrect numbskulls in the first film, the sequel instead has Borat come across the majority of America's scum. Although the reactions to Borat are priceless as ever and it does help giving the film more of a political agenda, I feel that there should have been more interactions with liberals or normals people. There are some notable interactions, but Cohen is really trying to expose bad seeds more than ever in the sequel. However, it could be due to the film being released closely to the 2020 elections, which might explain its choice to mainly expose and film terrible right-wing fanatics. Regardless, they don't take away the excellent performances and improve of Cohen and Bakalova.
Jason Woliner takes over the directing chair from Larry Charles from the first one. Regardless if Woliner or Cohen directed the film, the sequel clearly tries to take a different direction from the predecessor, which is where the sequel's flaws start to leak out. The most notable thing for viewers would be how the sequel tries to act more like an actual film rather than a mockumentary, mainly the scenes with only Borat and Tutar and the father-daughter dynamic. Although the first film did have scenes of scripted dialogue, namely when Borat and Azamat are by themselves or when Borat is talking to the camera, the dialogue felt natural to the circumstance and the scenes themselves were well-directed to give off the false impression of it being organic. In the sequel, whenever Borat and Tutar are building chemistry, it really feels artificial and only constructed for the narrative of the film. There's a good example, without spoilers, that consists of the cliche falling-out moment of the story. For some reason, there's a car in between them and I thought it was just some random guy having to deal with an argument in front of him. But no, it turns out it was an Uber for Tutar that the film never bothered to show or clarify. This example also shows how the editing in the sequel can be pretty bad at times. The fact that there are three editors credited should be a red flag for some. While the editing can be good at times, the real issue is that a lot of scenes or moments feel like they are missing something. You can tell that a lot of scenes have been cut out to make the film as short as it is, which results in sequences that lack a satisfying or comedic conclusion. The editing also causes plenty of continuity errors. The character of Luenell, Borat's prostitute wife, is barely mentioned and remains missing in the film despite offering a reason for Azamat to not show up in the movie. Her inclusion was actually just due to the editors taking any scenes she was in to be left out. Another instance is the disguises that Borat wears. In the beginning of the film, Borat makes it clear that he needs to wear disguises due to being far too recognizable to the public. While it makes for some funny moments, the issue is that there are plenty of scenes that have Borat in his signature outfit and appearance with no real reason as to why. The editing as a whole comes across as lazy to me. The cinematography by the returning Luke Geissbuhler is not as effective from the previous film. The camerawork and the men behind the camera still attempt to present the film as real archival footage or film crew for the fictional movie that can't interact with others. It almost works at capturing the magic from the first film. However, it fails to capture said magic when the camera are constantly filming the chemistry between Borat and Tutar. It still has the handheld movement, but because they are filming it like a typical drama, it breaks the illusion of the mockumentary style. The only factor of the filmmaking that tends to actually stay in nature and even improve on itself is the music by Erran Baran Cohen. The familiar "Kazakh" folk music returns, but with some new tracks and the attempt to have it function more as a comedic soundtrack. Overall, Woliner's contributions as director derailed the charm of what made the first film a comedic classic.
"Borat 2" is a bit conflicting for me. On the one hand, there's a clear sense of passion from Sacha to give out a worthwhile sequel of his most beloved character. The premise is absurdly funny, the tone and humour mostly sticks to the same beats, Sacha's reprisal as Borat is fantastic as ever, newcomer Bakalova does a great job as Tutar, the focus on mostly filming America's scum gives the film a political edge, and the music by Erran is still uniquely memorable in the comedy genre. On the other hand though, the sequel, in an attempt to be fresh and different from the original, goes in a different direction for its identity that it hampers the film's quality. The inclusion of the father-daughter relationship storyline is cliched and feels out-of-touch for the mockumentary aesthetic, the editing can be extremely incompetent with sequences leaving out comedic opportunities as well as creating a variety of continuity errors, the cinematography by Geissbuhler is a step-down from the first film due to how the scenes with Borat and Tutar are filmed, and Woliner's direction of making the sequel more like a straight-forward comedy rather than a believable mockumentary proves to be a poor choice in execution. I know that the choice was not all Woliner's fault and perhaps Sacha was the person responsible for this change of direction, especially in order to create certain comedic payoffs at the end. I understand why these decisions were made, but it doesn't excuse the poor editing and the shattered creative identity the sequel carries compared to the first film. At the end of the day, it's a solid comedy and offers more loveable sequences with a iconic character, but this sequel will end up belonging to the same pile as other comedy sequels that will be left forgotten for some while the original will be remembered by all.
Verdict: 7/10. A decent follow-up, but pales in comparison to the original by trying to distance its creative identity. If you have Amazon Prime, check it out if you can, especially for the current relevancy during the election period.
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