The highly-anticipated Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan will begin streaming on Amazon Prime this Friday, but the film has already been in the news all week after reviewers revealed the details of its climactic scene, which involves none other than former New York City mayor and Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani. And now, because Giuliani is claiming the "video is a complete fabrication," it means we're going to have to go into detail about this very unfortunate October surprise.
[Spoiler Alert: a description of the scene, plus some details about the movie in general, ahead]
Much like the first Borat from 2006, Sacha Baron Cohen uses the character and his love of disguises to encourage his targets to reveal their most ingrained, ugly biases, as well as test the limits of civility amongst unsuspecting people. Unlike the first film, which was largely a series of uproarious, uncomfortable and unforgettable set pieces, the sequel has much more of a narrative—it may not be as hilarious as the first film, but it's a much more cohesive movie.
The plot hinges on Borat's attempts to make up for the shame he brought on Kazakhstan with that first film by delivering a gift to the American government, which turns out to be his 15-year-old daughter Tutar (Maria Bakalova, who is a revelation and wonderful presence in the film). Along the way, Borat gets involved with QAnon, a plastic surgeon who says "titty" a lot, passionate Trump supporters, a bakery with no scruples about what they write on their cakes, CPAC, a pregnancy crisis center and more. That includes a surprisingly sweet moment with a pair of older Jewish women in a temple (Baron Cohen dedicates the film to one of them, Holocaust survivor Judith Dim Evans, who passed away before its release and whose estate is now suing Baron Cohen.)
The climax of the film is the fateful hotel meeting between Tutar (who is 24 in real life) and Giuliani, who thinks he's being interviewed by a conservative pundit. Giuliani flirts throughout the interview with her, and then with drinks in hand, they go to the bedroom at the end of the scene. They remove each other's microphones, and Giuliani sits on the bed and lies back, reaching his hands into his pants. He seems to be adjusting his shirt... but then lingers down there, with his hands appearing to reach farther down. Cohen bursts into the room at this moment, wearing a disguise and yelling, “She’s 15! She’s too old for you!”
On the one hand, the news stories revolving around the meeting are justified and expected: this is a top Trump crony seemingly caught in an indiscreet moment. On the other hand, the hype around the scene will probably make it lose its impact for many viewers; we never know whether Giuliani was told the adult actress was a minor, or what would have happened if the camera stayed on a few seconds longer. Too bad!
Giuliani has of course denied that anything bad happened, and claimed without evidence that the footage was altered. “The Borat video is a complete fabrication,” Giuliani tweeted. “I was tucking in my shirt after taking off the recording equipment. At no time before, during, or after the interview was I ever inappropriate. If Sacha Baron Cohen implies otherwise he is a stone-cold liar.” (In further tweets, he pivoted to claiming, without any evidence or logic, that this had something to do with Joe Biden: "This is an effort to blunt my relentless exposure of the criminality and depravity of Joe Biden and his entire family.")
In an interview with the Curtis & Juliet Show shortly after the incident took place, Giuliani contended, “I had to take off the electronic equipment. And when the electronic equipment came off, some of it was in the back and my shirt came a little out, although my clothes were entirely on. I leaned back, and I tucked my shirt in, and at that point they have this picture they take which looks doctored, but in any event, I’m tucking my shirt in. I assure you that’s all I was doing.”
Stephen Colbert offered a rebuttal to his excuses last night: “OK, I would buy that, but I watched the footage,” Colbert said. “Why did you go into a bedroom at the suggestion of a young woman to have cocktails to take off a mic? I take off a mic every night. Never once have I reclined on a king-sized bed and then launched a fact-finding mission to my own groin."
