‘Ali G: Who Iz I?’ Review: Do We Find Any Answers?

October 22, 2026

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , 1 Comment

Who iz they anyway?! (CREDIT: Amazon MGM Studios)

Starring: Sacha Baron Cohen, Morgana Robinson

Director: Sacha Baron Cohen

Running Time: 89 Minutes

Rating: R for Satirical Nudity, Language, and Drug Use

Release Date: October 23, 2026 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: After falling victim to evolving cultural sensitivities, Ali G is back! But he hasn’t exactly been financially solvent since the end of his eponymous HBO show, which is a problem since his very pregnant girlfriend Julie (Morgana Robinson) wants him to actually get serious and provide for their growing family. So he flies over to America in search of conquering our current media landscape. After all, creator-fueled social media platforms might just be the perfect platform for spreading his brand of clueless hip-hop culture appropriation. But a couple of other satirical characters also played by Sacha Baron Cohen – self-hating cis white professor Nira Cain-N’Degeocello and hypermasculine ex-Mossad operative Erran Morad – are intent on putting an end to his resurrection. And of course, a whole bunch of unsuspecting civilians also get corralled into the operation.

What Made an Impression?: Somewhat Nice: A few minutes into Ali G: Who Iz I?, I couldn’t help but realize, “Alistair Graham is pretty funny, but he’s no Borat.” That’s okay, though! Few satirical characters are as unforgettable as that kooky Kazakh newsman, but it’s hard not to make unfavorable comparisons when they were created by the same clown. There’s something that feels a little provincial about Ali G, so that even when he’s at his funniest, I can’t help but assume that Brits are laughing more than I am. By contrast, Borat – while ostensibly a citizen of an actual real-world country – can more accurately be considered a wholly fantastical creature. So Who Iz I? is perfectly pleasant, and that’s fine, but we do have to make peace with the fact that it’s not going to reach transcendence.
Feels Like Nowhere: Baron Cohen’s forte is coaxing telling reactions out of non-actors, and when Who Iz I? strays from that, we drift off into the uncanny. That is to say, when it’s just Ali G or Dr. Nira or Erran on their own, there’s an unmistakable sheen of fakeness. To be fair, those scenes are kind of necessary to establish context, but it’s hard not to wish for a less disconcerting way to pull that off.
Where Does the Responsibility Lie?: For those folks who still aren’t familiar with Baron Cohen’s antics, it’s as stunning as ever what he is capable of convincing them to do. I’m less interested currently about the prejudices he’s exposing (because so many of his current targets wear their prejudices on their sleeves nowadays) and more about how they’ll react to seeing themselves on screen. I don’t imagine that many (if any) of them will change their political inclinations, but maybe some of them will re-evaluate just a bit how far they’re willing to go to defend what they believe in.
Just Be Silly: Who Iz I? has a decent amount of value as a social experiment, but I enjoyed it most during the lower-stakes interactions, like interviews that turn into nonsensical ASMR sessions or the plentiful malapropisms. There’s also an encounter in a convenience store where the cashier is surprisingly thoughtful in the midst of the lunacy. And then there are a series of surprise celebrity cameos that manage to be playful instead of overindulgent. Ali G isn’t about to retake the world by storm, but he is learning to find a place that everyone can be okay with.

Ali Go: Who Iz I? is Recommended If You Like: Reflective Reboots, WTF Reaction Shots, Explanations of How They Did That

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Puffy Jackets

Sacha Baron Cohen Can Still Clown Us Like No Other in ‘Borat Subsequent Moviefilm’

October 21, 2020

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (CREDIT: Amazon Studios)

Starring: Sacha Baron Cohen, Maria Bakalova

Director: Jason Woliner

Running Time: 96 Minutes

Rating: R for No-Holds-Barred Outrageousness

Release Date: October 23, 2020 (Amazon Prime Video)

About four and a half minutes into Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, Kazakhstani reporter Borat Sagdiyev says “My wife,” and when I heard it, all felt right in the world. The first Borat flick came out on November 3, 2006, and on November 4, 2006, the world became overrun with hacky Borat impressions. In the fourteen years hence, his catchphrases have gone through a cycle of sincere to ironic to post-ironic and back again about 14 times (or maybe 1400 times). Somehow, though, Baron Cohen is now able to slide back into his famous creation without suffering one bit under the weight of his legacy. Borat’s reputation is primarily about his ability to hold up a mirror to society, but he’s also a fascinating character in his own right, layered with so many levels of absurd details. Joining that absurd litany is his daughter Tutar, brought to dementedly go-for-broke life by Bulgarian actress Maria Bakalova.

A new Borat film is enough justification for a chaotic imp like myself to pepper all my conversations with outbursts of “wah wah wee wah” and “very nice,” but will everyone else be speaking the same language, as they were back in 2006? My gut says no, because it’s nearly impossible to recreate a phenomenon like that, but also because this sequel won’t have the benefit of huge crowds enjoying it together in packed theaters. Of course, that formula is a bit different in the midst of a pandemic, so there’s a chance that Subsequent Moviefilm actually could hit the zeitgeist pretty hard as a straight-to-streaming release. But ultimately, to my mind anyway, that shouldn’t be the main goal of this endeavor. The most important question to ask ourselves should be (and I cannot reiterate this enough): after watching this film, does saying “my wife!” feel funnier than it did before? In my case, the answer is “absolutely.”

As much of a big deal as I’m making of the “my wife” of it all, it should be noted that that gag is a relatively small portion of the running time. Ostensibly, Baron Cohen’s goal is to once again expose the dark, bigoted underbelly lurking within America. But if you’ve lived in this country for the past few years, you might have noticed that there’s not that much left that needs exposing. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t still revelations to be had. The MAGA types that Borat encounters along the way behave pretty much as you expect them to. But once he tells them stories about the backwards traditions of his fictional Kazakhstan, it starts to get interesting. Some people play along, perhaps just to be polite, while others double down on their prejudiced impulses. But then there are those moments when the most knee-jerk conspiratorial thoughtfully disagree with him, laying bare the sort of pretzel logic that is perhaps quite commonplace in human society.

While the improvised interactions with civilians are frequently poignant, it’s the scripted moments that I found most hilarious. The plot is driven by Borat’s mission to deliver to Vice President Mike Pence (“America’s most famous ladies man”) a gift of Johnny the Monkey, Kazakhstan’s most popular primate porn star. But when that goes awry, the plan changes to him offering the teenage Tutar as a new wife for Pence (or whomever in Donald Trump’s orbit will take her). Baron Cohen is famed for his clown training, and Bakalova matches (and often tops) him in her willingness to transform into the most comical possible version of herself.

As outrageous as their antics mostly are, there’s also a sweet, beating heart at the core of their interactions. He wants her to sleep in the biggest, most comfortable cage in the world, and she loves him for his efforts to do so, but she eventually starts to wonder if maybe the fairy tales she’s heard about women not being able to do pretty much anything aren’t as true as she once thought. (The revolution she endures when confronted with the truth actually reminds me of the fight scene in They Live, with its similar underscoring of the disruption inherent to having your eyes opened.) So while Borat’s cries of “my wife” have been delightfully echoing in our ears for quite some time, maybe now they’ll also be paired with proud proclamations of “my daughter.”

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm is Recommended If You Like: Hearty Belly Laughs, Fractured Fairy Tales, Cultural Icons That Endure Much Longer Than Expected

Grade: 4 out of 5 Hrams