FROM KAZAKHSTAN WITH LOVE SACHA BARON COHEN BRINGS OVER-THE-TOP JOURNALIST BORAT SAGDIYEV TO AMERICA.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Writer

PART I : ON LEARNINGS FOR AMERICA ABOUT WHO IS THIS FUNNY GUY

According to surveys, when ``Borat!'' arrives in theaters today, you are either already in on the joke or have no idea who this goofy TV reporter from Kazakhstan is.

In the past few weeks, Sacha Baron Cohen, the English comedian who plays the sexist, anti-Semitic, utterly uncouth and often hilarious Borat Sagdiyev has been all over the media. He even gave a press conference at the gates of the White House, never breaking character as the thick-mustachioed, English-challenged, syntax-mangling, bad-suit-wearing Borat.

That's part of the joke. The guerrilla comedian Cohen plays his character for real.

As Borat, he and his film crew are supposedly making a ``documentary'' about his experiences driving across America.

After making an appointment -- at a car dealership, for example -- he and the crew reportedly show up late, giving locals little time to check him out.

After getting the locals to sign waivers and compensating them in cash for their time, Cohen goes full Borat, a character American audiences may have seen on his HBO series ``Da Ali G Show.''

Cohen's outrageous character then proceeds to push every button he can to provoke and get a laugh at the expense of his unsuspecting subject.

He reportedly spent three hours at the car dealership (about a five-minute segment in the film) trying to buy a $70,000 Hummer -- a (chick) magnet, though chick wasn't the term he used. Only after a test drive and some outlandish moments did Borat mention to the salesman he was only willing to spend $600.

But despite Cohen's exhaustive, disciplined efforts and the fact that the film has generated more advance buzz than probably any movie this year, ``Borat!'' -- with the subtitle ``Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan'' -- has its studio, 20th Century Fox, worried. Fox has decided to open the movie in only 800 theaters. Two weeks ago, the plan was for a more standard wide release on 2,000 screens.

This for a comedy that is receiving rare, and almost across-the-board, rapturous reviews, and has other funnymen worried about their films also coming out this month.

PART II: ON FUNNY GUYS ON FUNNY GUY

``He is pretty great,'' Will Ferrell says of Cohen, who played the effete French racer in Ferrell's summer hit ``Talladega Nights,''

Ferrell's new film, ``Stranger Than Fiction,'' opens a week from today.

``Kinda brilliant. He fit in effortlessly to what we were doing in `Talladega Nights,' so that was great. Now it's a shame that we're opening in the same month and have got to compete, even though they're different types of movies.''

``I am looking forward to it,'' adds Jack Black, whose rock spoof ``Tenacious D in `The Pick of Destiny' '' hits theaters Thanksgiving week.

``But `Borat!' strikes fear into the hearts of all comedians with movies coming out at the same time. I've heard that he's platforming now, opening in 800 theaters with a plan to slowly build, so it should be in maximum theaters right when our movie is coming out.''

Despite the competition, though, Black can't hide his admiration.

``In terms of comedians, he's like my favorite band, the band that I look forward to the album coming out. So I'm psyched about Borat's movie; Sacha Cohen is a rising star.''

PART III: ON JEWS, GYPSIES, WOMEN AND UZBEKS

Several things make Borat such a formidable comic creation.

He's a perfect ambush character, for one. A lot of his shtick in the movie, and almost all of it on ``Ali G,'' involves asking celebrities, politicians and everyday folks -- who think he's an actual Kazakh interviewer -- leading questions that reveal their hidden or unexamined prejudices. (Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump are among those who have unwittingly fallen prey to Cohen's fake hip-hop reporter Ali G.)

Viewers who are in on the joke also get to laugh fairly guiltlessly when Borat expresses his over-the-top intolerance of Jews, Gypsies, women and Kazakhstan's neighbors, the Uzbeks, among other people who aren't like him.

The Cambridge-educated Cohen, who is Jewish, contends that Borat's ludicrously exaggerated ethnic humor satirizes the very types of people who take their hatreds seriously. Whether his fans are really laughing at what Borat says or at him for saying it, though, is an interesting question. (The Anti-Defamation League, while acknowledging Borat's satirical intent, has expressed concern.)

Then there's the matter of how do the Kazakhs, whom Borat portrays as the most backward people on Earth, feel about his discomforting satire. The former Soviet republic has issued both condemnations of Cohen's humor and an invitation for the comedian to visit the country and see for himself that they don't keep women in cages, the local wine is made from grapes (as opposed to Borat's favorite quaff, fermented horse urine) and Jews are free to live their lives and worship as they please there.

These would all be fascinating subjects to discuss with Cohen, who studied history at Cambridge and wrote his thesis on how Jews and African-Americans worked together during the civil rights movement.

But we couldn't, since Cohen insisted on doing a staged press conference entirely as Borat.

PART IV: ON MEETING BORAT FOR MAKING BENEFIT OF PUBLICITY

Reporters asking him questions had to submit them in writing weeks beforehand. A Fox publicist then read them to Cohen/Borat, who of course had time to work up funny new answers.

Q: Can you tell us about yourself?

BORAT: ``My hobbies is disco dance, table tennis and also taking photographs of ladies doing toilet without their knowledge. Why not? They do not know.

``I have previous work as ice maker, Gypsy catcher and I was also work in computer maintenance. I was the one who paint the outside and remove the dead birds from its pipes.

``My sister make my family very proud by being No. 4 prostitute in all of Kazakhstan. I also have a brother, name Bilo. He is a retard with a small head but very strong arms. He has 204 teeth; 201 in mouth and three in nose.

``My first wife is dead. High five!''

There was more along these lines, but it's more important to impart some of Borat's political wisdom at this point. He did, after all, try to invite President Bush to a screening of his movie the day before Kazakhstan's real president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, was scheduled to visit the White House. The Secret Service refused to let Cohen onto the grounds.

Q: You recently traveled to Washington to meet with President Bush. What is your opinion of our president?

BORAT: ``We in Kazakhstan very much admires your mighty warlord George Walter Bush. He is a very wise man, and also a strong man. But perhaps not as strong as his father, Barbara.''

Then, in closing, just to set the record straight ...

Q: Why is your government so angry with Sacha Baron Cohen? And have you ever met Mr. Baron Cohen?

BORAT: ``As I have said before, I have no connection with Mr. Cohen, and I fully support my government's decision to sue this Jew. Thank you very much, peoples here today. Very nice be here and meet you. I hope later, you can come back to my hotel room.

``We can wrestle totally nude, drink and shoot dogs from a window. I like you!''

If a lot of these gags sound familiar -- congratulations, you're a Borat fan. He's been doing variations on these lines through most of the promotional effort, and some of the same material pops up in the movie, too.

PART V: ON CULURAL LEARNINGS OF A BORAT MOVIE

But the film also boasts moments of truly dangerous comic daring.

Directed by Larry Charles, who's written for TV's ``Seinfeld'' and ``Entourage'' and directed numerous episodes of ``Curb Your Enthusiasm,'' the movie was partially staged but mostly filmed semi-guerrilla style. Many of the regular citizens encountered as Borat and his portly, non-English-speaking producer Azamat (Ken Davitian) made their way across the country appear to have believed that they were actually participating in a Kazakh television documentary.

So when Borat sings the Kazakh national anthem to the tune of ours at a Virginia rodeo, the crowd starts booing and he was reportedly told to get out before something bad happened.

(Moments earlier, the crowd had cheered when he told them, ``We support your war of terror!'')

When Borat and Azamat's nude scene exercise spills out of their hotel room into elevators and a crowded business conference, the crowd looks genuinely shocked. As for Pamela Anderson, whom Borat vows to marry upon viewing his first ``Baywatch,'' Cohen either totally punk'd her or she's a much better actress than we've ever given her credit for.

This is all brilliant, risky, literally call-the-

cops stuff.

And it would've been fascinating to talk to Cohen about pulling some of it off. But nothing doing.

Unlike the other reporter in the room, I tried a few stupid follow-up questions, and Cohen/Borat shut me right down -- usually with something along the lines of ``How many teeth do you have in your nose?'' -- much to the amusement of my colleagues.

However foolish he may have made me look, at least I was part of a spontaneous Borat exchange, which the movie indicates is pretty much every American's birthright. And unlike most of my filmed ``countrypeople,'' I knew it was a gag.

How many more Americans, though, will get it? We start finding out today. But Cohen already may have the last laugh.

Earlier in the week, it was announced that Universal Pictures had won an intense bidding war for ``Bruno,'' Cohen's follow-up movie to ``Borat!'' The studio is said to be paying $42.5 million for the film. Bruno, a gay fashionista from Austria who fancies himself ``the voice of Austrian youth TV,'' is another of Cohen's comic alter egos.

All we can say is: America beware.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

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CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) American ODD-yssey

See U.S. and A. with Borat, much famous Kazakhstan journalist who is having very many chutzpahs to spare in new movie

(2) no caption (Borat Sagdiyev)

(3) During his tour of America, Sacha Baron Cohen's Kazakh journalist loses his hairy producer but gains a grizzly.