We saw Borat this afternoon. It really was pretty funny. There's what SJ calls "the cringe factor." A number of the gags depended on making the audience cringe. Here's just a sampler:

• taking an etiquette lesson for a dinner party, then grossing out the guests by holding up a white plastic bag after he emerges from the bathroom, and asking where he can dispose of it
• Showing the etiquette coach "family" photos of his naked son, saying how "strong he is" and that he's grown 3 cm. recently . . .
• The naked wrestling with his obese producer in the hotel room followed by racing naked through a room full of conventioneers

And those are just the physical gags. There are the anti-semitic rants, the buying an old ice cream truck because he couldn't afford a Hummer to make the cross country trip, the gay pride parade in D.C., the jokes about retards, and the footage of the boorish drunken frat guys in their RV.

Here's how we know the movie is a hit: Sacha Baron Cohen is getting hit with lawsuits. The tv news producer who got fired by her station for booking Borat is suing him. The boorish frat guys are suing him--despite the fact that Borat didn't catch them doing anything they wouldn't have done without his being there, and they signed releases. Now the villagers from Glod ("Mud") in Romania, where Borat's "hometown" was filmed are no longer happy with the $5 they each got paid for their bit-part roles in the "documentary." They were fine with it for several months, until the movie became a hit--now they want a piece of the action, if they can scrape together enough to hire a lawyer.

I'm looking forward to his next movie featuring "Bruno," the gay Austrian fashion journalist.