Published: November 13, 2006 08:22 am      

Previews of “Borat” are enough

Have you ever watched previews for a movie thinking it was going to be really funny and like something you’d enjoy? Have you ever gone into the theater with those expectations only to be somewhat disappointed? Perhaps it’s due to overkill with publicity, but while “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” does have a few scenes which will more than likely become infamous, the rest was filler and silliness.

Kazakhstan born and raised Borat (Sacha Baron Cohen) works as a reporter for his home country, in which he covers various newsworthy stories, such as the annual “Running of the Jew” and films documentaries.

In the attempt to better his nation, Borat receives the honor of traveling to the United States to gain insight on the country and take that information back to Kazakhstan. However, once in New York City, Borat gets sidetracked by American staple Pam Anderson and convinces sidekick Azamat (Ken Davitian) to travel across America and head to Malibu to find his newfound dream girl. Of course along the way, they encounter everything to chubby southern prostitutes to gay pride parades and must survive an array of setbacks until their journey is complete.

“Borat” takes a simple formula and literally runs with it. What better way to show the United States than travel across country and meet all kinds of people? Naturally the funniest moments consist of when the foreigner runs into cultural differences, such as women having the right to chose who they sleep with and the exchanging of hair for goods, while other scenes are pretty graphic-too graphic, in fact, to mention. But a lot of the scenes that were meant to be the funniest ended up in the trailer that has been playing for weeks before the release.

Overall, “Borat” was good for a few laughs, however if you’ve watched the previews, you’ve seen enough.

“Borat” is rated R for pervasive strong crude and sexual content including graphic nudity, and language. Runtime is 84 minutes.