SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains absolutely massive spoilers from Borat 2. If you do not wish to know about major scenes in the film before seeing it yourself, proceed at your own risk!
At this point, audiences go into a Borat movie with the full expectation of outrageousness… and yet Jason Woliner's Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan somehow manages to over-deliver. Not everything that the sequel tries actually works, but when it does, the film is phenomenally explosive and shocking. Like with the first one, there are scenes in Borat 2 that audiences are going to be talking about for years to come.
We here at CinemaBlend are still processing everything that transpires in the movie – and in that sense, you can almost look at this as a kind of therapy. Out of everything that happens in the Amazon Prime release, here are the moments that are particularly tattooed onto our brains, and show no sign of fading.
The Rudy Giuliani Interview
Let’s start by talking about a scene so shocking that people couldn’t even wait for Borat 2 to be released before discussing it openly. While the titular character has a long history of getting notable figures to sit down on camera, the “interview” between Tutar Sagdiyev and Rudy Giuliani – the personal attorney of the President of the United States – exists on a whole other level. The fawning, coughing, and lack of social distancing is one thing, but the moment that will never be forgotten is when the former New York City mayor reaches down his unzipped pants before being interrupted by a lingerie-clad Borat. It is unquestionably the protagonist’s new high bar for insanity, no matter what one believes was actually happening.
The Debutante Ball
Borat and daughter Tutar going to a debutante ball is one of the more transparent set-ups found in Borat 2, as you know from moment one that it’s all going to lead to a major punchline. Regardless, it still winds up being of the film’s greatest scenes. First comes the great appetizer in the form of that awful man who actually puts a dollar figure on Tutar (much to the disgust of the girl he is escorting), but the real show is the father-daughter dance. Even after Tutar mentions that she has started her period, you don’t know exactly where it’s going, but by the end your jaw is definitely on the dance floor.
CPAC 2020 And The Offering To Vice President Pence
When a bit starts off with your main character entering a Republican convention wearing KKK robes and screaming, “I’m Stephen Miller,” only for no one around to bat an eye, you know that you have the makings of comedic gold. Things only escalate from there, as Borat slips on a Donald Trump costume in the bathroom before making a charge at a mid-speech Michael Pence with his daughter slung over his shoulder. It’s the kind of scene that dries your eyes out because you’re left so agog that you forget to blink – and it’s actually pretty incredible that Sacha Baron Cohen and Maria Bakalova didn’t get arrested or at least detained as a result.
Propane Tanks Of Death
Somebody needs to be made responsible for making sure that King of the Hill's Hank never watches Borat 2, because he might keel over and die upon hearing the suggestion that the Kazakh journalist has for using propane tanks. What’s far, far worse than Borat satirically suggesting the use of the gas to kill gypsies (it is a joke after all) is that the salesperson who is showing him around doesn’t hesitate for a second at agreeing to the idea. Hell, the guy even tries an upsell when Borat raises the hypothetical number of gypsies that could be murdered. Along with the guy seeing no problem with Tutar being forced to live in a cage, this showcases the special kind of abhorrent thoughts that Sacha Baron Cohen has a gift for eliciting from the people he meets.
Meeting A Holocaust Survivor In A Beyond-Anti-Semitic Costume
Borat gets away with a lot of horrible anti-Semitic behavior and rhetoric because of the fact that Sacha Baron Cohen is personally Jewish, but even that rationality gets tested to the extreme in Borat 2 when the eponymous journalist decides to visit a synagogue. It’s insane enough that he dresses up as what can only be described as "anti-Semitic propaganda brought to life" by wearing an elongated nose, fake claws, and a pair of plastic demon wings. But what makes your heart truly drop in your chest is when he comes across a pair of elderly women – one of whom introduces herself as a survivor of the Holocaust. By the end of the interaction, the whole situation winds up actually being incredibly beautiful, as the survivor's natural response to hate is demonstrating love. Still, it doesn't make any of the preceding moments any less shocking.
The Hillsborough Republican Women’s Club Meeting
Audiences going in to Borat 2 know what Sacha Baron Cohen is capable of comedically, but the big revelation of the film is the outrageous talent of co-star Maria Bakalova, who proves incredibly gifted when it comes to doing what it is that Cohen does so well. The Hillsborough Republican Women’s Club meeting is the perfect example, as it’s a moment that Tutar carries entirely on her own, and it’s screamingly funny. After spending almost the entire movie afraid of her own genitalia, the teenage girl ends up espousing the wonders of masturbation to a group of conservative women, and the reactions she gets from the room are priceless – ending with the brilliance of “Someone call her an Uber.”
The March For Our Rights Rally
Borat has a history of performing songs with insanely abhorrent lyrics, memorably introducing “In My Country There Is Problem (Throw The Jew Down The Well)” in Season 2 of Da Ali G Show. That legacy certainly lives on in Borat 2 with the disturbing “What You Gonna Do?” as performed at a March For Our Rights rally in Olympia, Washington. Once again, it's not so much funny that Borat sings about injecting former President Barack Obama with COVID-19, or chopping up journalists “like the Saudis do,” but rather that he actually compels the crowd to sing along with him in agreement with those heinous sentiments. Just unbelievable stuff.
What was your reaction to all of these moments in Borat 2? Did they have the same devastating effect on you as they had on us? Are there moments that you feel deserve to be highlighted, but don’t appear in this list? Hit the comments section with all of your thoughts, feelings, and opinions, and be on the lookout for plenty more of our Borat coverage here on CinemaBlend in the coming days.
