All you need is a cliché. A walking, talking cardboard cut out of extremism.

Clueless wanna-be suburban gangster? Ali G!

Ignorant, sexist pig from a country most people haven’t heard of? Borat!

A dayglo east European camp cliché? Coming soon to a multiplex near you, Bruno!

“Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan”, is finally here and…. it’s alright.

Do you remember the bit in “Broadcast News”, where William Hurt fakes crying during an interview to make compelling television? For the seasoned movie buff, “Borat” is just as fake. And whilst there’s no doubt Sasha Baron Cohen must have balls of steel to pull off some of the utterly bizarre and outlandish moments in this film – especially with unwitting participants at dinner parties, rodeos, business meetings, an immense amount of nudity, evangelical communions and travelling frat parties – “Borat” is a big lie about the Big Lie that is the American Dream.

But what a lie. Far far superior to such lowest-common-denominator rubbish as “Jackass 2” – which is just stupid goofing without context or any cultural worth – “Borat” at least attempts to expose the sometimes ugly, not-so-hidden values of middle America. Fully aware that they are on camera, the numpties of the Bible Belt gleefully expose their vile beliefs that masquerade as honour : the Rodeo owner joking about how a good Christian Country aims to kill all the homosexuals, the Frat Boys bragging about bitches, and almost everyone else he meets.

Frankly, if you’ve seen the trailer, then you feel as if you’ve seen half of the movie : the best line of the movie is wasted in the trailer. Whilst some critics say that the film trails off in the last half an hour, that’s only because nothing in the last half an hour is in the trailer at all : which is a shame, because at least one scene – where Borat meets Mr. Jesus – is as ruthless as anything I’ve seen.

Thankfully, like anything by Stone/Parker, nothing is sacred : not even, it seems, Borat’s safety – for which he got arrested by burly Security goons at least twice, had the police called on him 91 times, punched in the face, and roundly boo’ed by large crowds during shooting. But be warned : despite the acute social commentary in the movie, Borat is also a set of bargain basement unsophisticated tit and dick jokes.

But the faux-documentary format is starting to wear thin (And it’s obvious that this film features numerous reconstructions of events that spoil the cinema-verite illusion). Cohen’s next film – “Bruno” – will have to try hard not to follow the law of diminishing returns and find fresh targets. With “Borat” Cohen has harvested his talent to produce an interesting but ultimately shallow exercise in cruelty that is either a brilliant satire of the moral bankruptcy of America’s moral value, or a bunch of juvenile arsing about.