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

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (2020) was made fourteen years later, and this time the subject is that Borat is recognised. After the first film Borat has been imprisoned in Kazakhstan. He is released to save his country and told to deliver a gift to America. When the gift is lost he decides to offer his own daughter Tutar instead. The real change is her: Tutar is the second lead and the story is about what she was taught and what she gives up. Maria Bakalova was nominated for supporting actress. Because Borat is now recognisable, Cohen had to disguise him: for much of the film Borat is dressed as someone else, a disguise inside a disguise. It was shot in the middle of the pandemic and that went into the film; lockdown, conspiracy theories and arguments about masks became part of the fiction. For a period Cohen genuinely lived in the house of two conspiracy theorists while filming. Security was a real problem; on some shoots he worked with a protection team and an escape plan. The most discussed section was a staged interview with Rudy Giuliani in a hotel room, which became an argument of its own when the film appeared. It was released just before the American election and the timing was deliberate. It runs 95 minutes. Good for: satire, hidden camera comedy, and political humour. Less good for: the humour is crude and uncomfortable, and the consent of the real people involved is contested.