The surprise Borat sequel that Sacha Baron Cohen filmed in secret is coming to screens very soon. High five!
Borat Sagdiyev is a brilliant subversive legend that ate your most offensive racist and sexist jokes for breakfast, and he didn’t even burp. And just when you thought people were over saying “very nice” and “my wife,” it was unexpectedly announced that Borat 2 would return to deliver more hilarious hijinks.
It has been confirmed that Amazon has picked up his second movie for worldwide distribution and will be available online through Amazon Prime Video on 23 October, ahead of the US presidential election and effectively out-trumping Trump. Amazon will make the film available in 240 countries and territories.
Earlier this week, it was revealed that the deliberately misspelled title of the sequel to Borat! Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan will be Borat: Gift of Pornographic Monkey to Vice Premiere Mikhael Pence to Make Benefit Recently Diminished Nation of Kazakhstan.
Several videos have also been captured of what looks like Cohen filming in character, including him singing a Covid song at a far-right event, and driving down a street in Los Angeles.
The nail-biter of a presidential election takes place on 3 November. It’s certainly interesting that it is being rushed out before American citizens take to the polls, which would suggest some political content in the film. The title of the sequel makes reference to Vice President Mike Pence, and Cohen’s most recent series for HBO, Who Is America?, certainly didn’t shy away the current political landscape in the US and A.
Details of Borat 2 are slowly emerging. According to Collider, the film finds the protagonist “thinking he’s a big movie star after the success of the original 2006 film made him famous, so he’s trying to hide from the public by pretending to be someone else, and starts meeting and interviewing people incognito.”
Borat remains one of the most popular, quotable, and controversial movies of the 21st century. The film follows the titular character, a Kazkhstani journalist who comes to America to learn about its customs, share his own heritage, and stalk Pamela Anderson.
The movie grossed an impressive $262 million worldwide, which paved the way for other Cohen movies like Bruno ($138 million) and The Dictator ($179 million), though neither was able to replicate quite the same box office success, which kicked off on the big screen in 2002 with Ali G Indahouse.
This is my mainman and some pesky journalist type the year before that.
Deadline also reports that Baron Cohen had to wear a bulletproof vest for two days of shooting Borat 2, as his undercover filming put him in genuine danger. Probably from gun-totin’ Trump-lovin’ rednecks.
Pray for them, gypsy.
Steve Pafford
UPDATE: The movie title has been changed to remove the reference to Mike Pence and is now the rather less controversial Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. I wonder why.