A reteaming of the star and director of Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen and Larry Charles respectively, to peddle the same or a similar shtick in a different persona: a different funny accent, different funny wardrobe, different funny hairdo. The shtick, should you need to be reminded, is to inflict the persona on unsuspecting innocents untipped that it’s a disguise; and the persona on this occasion is a flaming homosexual fashionista (and oxymoronic fascist) out of Austria, dismissed as host of the Funkyzeit TV show after a public faux pas on a Milan catwalk in a Velcro suit, determined now to start afresh in the U.S. The first and foremost point to be made is that the film is not a mockumentary in the manner of Borat, slightly slicker than it in technique. Most of the time, there is no excuse for a camera to be present, as there was for the Kazakhstan journalist on his journey across America. (Very much a secondary and subordinate point would be that the stereotype of the Third World boor was at least somewhat novel, whereas the stereotype of the Euro swish is no more than yellowed comic book.) There is, in consequence, a precipitous drop in opportunities to ensnare unsuspecting innocents and a steep rise in staged scenes with undeclared actors, thus narrowing the gap — not all that wide to begin with — between the guerrilla comedy of Cohen and the mainstream gonzo comedy of a Ferrell, a Stiller. To be able to believe, or partly believe, or almost believe, in the “reality” of a scene, turns out to be vital to Cohen’s identity and individuality. Without it, the guerrilla is shooting blanks. (2009) — Duncan Shepherd
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