Borat is Kazakhstan’s one and only international celebrity and the Government of the central Asian republic is absolutely aghast at the fact. The tactless television reporter has turned their beloved homeland into a fabulous joke. Borat is the self-anointed ambassador of a country stuck in the Monty Python Middle Ages. His manners are medieval. His prejudices are shocking. His ex is a horse. His documentary quest — to unlock the secrets of American culture for the benefit of jealous peasants in Kazakhstan — has made every front page.

The result is a film to cherish. The irony, of course, is that Borat is a total fiction, and British to boot. The skinny reporter is the invention of Sacha Baron Cohen, a Jewish actor who has never set foot in Kazakhstan and who would be shot on sight if he did. Borat has yet to ask a single sensible question. But his barnyard interviews have made him a tabloid star. Larry Charles’s film about his Quixotic adventures in America was the guilty highlight of the London Film Festival.

The faux documentary begins in a muddy village in Kazakhstan. This, explains Borat, is home. He introduces his limping neighbours and hugs the local psychopaths. There is a cow in his state-of-the-art living room. Women are inherently stupid. Incest is normal. Bestiality is best. And it’s a civic duty to butcher Gypsies and Jews. It’s good clean fun, explains our intrepid journalist. But there’s a brand new world to discover.

The satire lifts off when Borat arrives in New York, sporting a cheap shiny suit and a preposterous accent. He has a live chicken in his luggage. He tries to be cosmopolitan but he is constantly stumped by strangers who flinch from his kisses or threaten to rearrange his jaw. But his exotic credentials open surprising doors. Borat is interviewed by local news channels, invited to worthy events, and told to shave off his moustache in case he is mistaken for a Muslim suicide bomber.

In 84 minutes the film demolishes the myth of an open-minded society. Borat fails to milk a single laugh from a professional “humour coach” called Pat Hagerty. Hardcore feminists walk out of interviews when he asks if they are actually female. “I could not concentrate on what this old man was saying,” says his puzzled voiceover. And there are wild cheers at a Texas rodeo when he takes the microphone in the arena and shouts: “George Bush drinks the blood of every man, woman and child.”

Cohen is so impulsive and reckless as Borat that you fear for his safety. His polite curiosity excites the most patronising sympathy. He is invited to a stuffy dinner party with experts in etiquette. His ignorance of how to flush a lavatory inspires instant horror. There is outrage when a black prostitute pitches up as his last-minute guest.

Borat’s zealous admiration of Western values is fabulously spiked by a complete failure to absorb a single one. He does try. He falls head over heels for Pamela Anderson after watching an episode of Baywatch. He races across America in an ice-cream truck with his fat, alcoholic producer (Ken Davitian) in the sincere belief that he can broker a marriage for a couple of goats.

Inevitably the satire has to run out of steam. Cohen can’t possibly sustain the Candid Camera magic without resorting to clunky set-ups. During the last quarter the giggly targets are too much in the know. The punchlines ring hollow, and the reaction shots look staged. But these are reluctant quibbles about a “documentary” that gets away with blue murder.

JAMES CHRISTOPHER

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