Most critics find the film extremely funny and say so without much qualification. Fourteen of the fifteen reviews are positive, and the praise gathers around Sacha Baron Cohen’s performance and the real, unscripted encounters in which ordinary Americans meet Borat’s bigotry with their own. Several reviews single out the same scenes: the rodeo with its mangled national anthem, and the extended naked fight in a hotel. Larry Charles’s brisk direction earns a mention more than once.
The reservations concern depth and shape. The AV Club thinks the film leans on scatological gags rather than on satire, and Screen Daily finds the sketch structure bitty, wearing thin before the end. Several critics warn it will offend, real Kazakhs included, and treat that as the point. Film Comment supplies the lone negative notice, describing Borat as a cretin pushing America’s buttons and finding little else in him. Otherwise the spread is narrow, with most scores bunched near the top.
