Cinema: Culture clash

Borat, with his naïve bluntness, coaxes unsuspecting Americans into revealing their true colours and the spotlight is on London's Jewish community as one boy struggles towards manhood in Sixty-Six. By Declan Burke

A feature-length episode of Candid Camera, Borat (16s) stars Sacha Baron Cohen as Kazakhstani television presenter Borat Sagdiyev, who embarks on a tour of America with his producer, Azamat Bagatov (Ken Davitian), in tow. The idea, according to the movie's subtitle, is Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, although the real mission is to juxtapose the ignorance of a fictionalised Kazakhstan (a backward hell-hole where "the running of the Jews" is an annual event) with an ostensibly civilised America, and for Cohen's hapless hero to play jester to a court of fools, bigots, racists and misogynists.

Cohen is an astute comic, and his combination of timing and chutzpah makes for some hilarious set-pieces. The scene in which Borat sings a made-up Kazakhstan national anthem to the tune of the American national anthem before a bemused rodeo audience is one of the funniest things committed to celluloid in years. But while the film is consistently funny in an 'I can't believe he just said that' way, some of the set-pieces are very obviously staged. That's not a problem when Borat is crashing around an antiques store like the proverbial bull in a china shop, for example, but if the film purports to expose the casual racism, anti-Semitism and misogyny of Americans, then you're entitled to expect somewhat more than a glorified episode of Beadle's About.

Cohen's modus operandi is to introduce a controversial topic with the naïve bluntness of an uneducated foreigner, thus allowing people to reveal their true colours, often to a chilling degree. But it is disingenuous to pretend, as is the case here, that Cohen/Borat simply stumbles from one pack of to bigots to another. Yes, his method uncovers a distasteful underbelly that isn't often revealed to the harsh light of TV cameras, but demonising America as a backward nation populated by redneck racists is over-egging the pudding somewhat. Had Cohen/Borat taken the same show on the road in Britain, Ireland, France or Australia, he would probably have discovered very similar roaches lurking beneath the stones. It doesn't take genius to uncover racism – although, to be fair, it takes no little talent to make it eye-wipingly funny.

The experience of the Jewish community in London forms the backdrop to Sixty-Six (12A), the story of one young boy's attempts to make his Bar Mitzvah the most lavish day of his life. Unfortunately for Bernie Rubens (Gregg Sulkin), his family's fortunes are on the wane, and his father and mother (Eddie Marsan and Helena Bonham-Carter) can't afford the expense. Worse, the day of his Bar Mitzvah is scheduled for 31 July 1966 – the day of the World Cup final.

Sixty Six is good on period detail, and at recreating the claustrophobic feel of being part of a minority community, but it lacks a central figure that can carry its tone of wistful nostalgia. The appropriately named Sulkin offers little more than an extended mope, leaving the quietly impressive Marsan to steal the show with a poignant performance of quiet desperation.

Borat****

Sixty-Six***