Borat a documentary on the demented side

Mike Pearson, Rocky Mountain News

Published March 5, 2007 at midnight

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Borat

Fox (DVD), 86 minutes, rated R ($29.98)

Grade: B

Given the range of reactions during its theatrical run, you’d think this was either the greatest satirical film of the past 50 years or an embarrassment on celluloid.

The truth? It’s a little of both.

Sacha Baron Cohen reprises the character of Borat Sagdiyev from Da Ali G Show, a tactless Kazakhstan journalist who comes to America to make a documentary for his homeland.

Borat’s a dolt, to say the least. While touring he gets lessons in driving, manners and dreams deferred. What starts as a cultural pilgrimage becomes a sexual one after he sees Pamela Anderson on TV and heads to California to claim her as his bride.

Cohen so thoroughly immerses himself in his character that it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that none of what transpires is real. Not much anyway — although he manages to crash a posh dinner party, a gay-pride parade and a get "saved" at a Pentecostal revival.

Borat unfolds like Monty Python-meets-Jackass, with some stunts designed to amuse and others designed to disgust. What do the ordinary Americans he meets make of this man who carries a live chicken in his satchel? They’re mostly stunned, and seldom in on the joke.

There aren’t many belly laughs here, but satire runs deep as Borat exposes many a prejudice in the American way of life. Sometimes the film is downright silly, as when Borat takes a prostitute to a rodeo bar to ride a mechanical bull.

I can’t claim to be a convert, but I’ll concede I’ve never seen a comedy quite like Borat, and I don’t expect to see one again any time soon.

Extras: several extended and deleted scenes and publicity-tour footage as Cohen stumps for the movie in character as Borat.

Fast Food Nation

Fox. DVD. 114 minutes. Rated R. $27.98.

Grade: C

Director Richard Linklater lost the structure but kept the damning premise of Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation, a fictional expose of the fast food industry.

The key indictments are there: how fast food chains shamelessly market their food to demographically susceptible groups; how the fecal matter at slaughter houses makes its way into the meat; how animals are mistreated en route to becoming your Happy Meal.

Several storylines overlap here, although not with any finesse. Greg Kinnear plays a vice president for Mickey’s, investigating reports that his chain’s meat is contaminated. He is shown a spotless processing plant. Only upon talking to ex-employees does he learn the horror of the killing floor.

Wilmer Valderrama and Catalina Sandino Moreno illegally cross the border to get jobs at the packing plant. A few miles away a high schooler struggles with her conscience while working at a Mickey’s.

There’s no overt vilifying here, though Schlosser’s central thesis — than the chains are bastions of greed and indifference — shines through.

Here’s the problem with Fast Food Nation: It’s slow and Linklater tries to jam too much story into too small a space. The illegal immigrant story has more dramatic heft and emotional impact than anything else on the screen.

If you really want a call to arms, buy the book, not the movie.

Extras: A making of feature and four animated shorts that graphically show how cattle are slaughtered and processed for the fast food market.

Let’s Go to Prison

Universal. DVD. 95 minutes. Unrated. $29.98.

Grade: D

Given a choice between watching Let’s Go to Prison and the real thing, the latter might be the least painful path.

The producers who gave us The Cosby Show and Roseanne are behind this mildly dysfunctional comedy about an arrogant businessman (Will Arnett) sent to prison after he is framed by an ex-con with a beef with the target’s judge father.

Once inside the big house Nelson Biederman becomes everyone’s punk — until he inadvertently kills the head of a white supremacist gang. Suddenly, he’s the man.

John the ex-con (Dax Shepard) gets himself locked up so he can watch his victim squirm, only to find the tables turned on him. Framing people doesn’t pay.

There aren’t many great prison films, and even fewer great prison comedies. The conceit here is convoluted — why frame the son of the man who did you wrong — and life inside the penal colony is a series of clichés. Chi McBride pops in as a prison tough who wants to make Nelson his . . . you know.

Let’s Go to Prison is funny the way a root canal is funny. And twice as long.

Extras: Alternate ending, deleted scenes and soundtrack sessions.

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