It should come as no surprise to anyone with an Internet connection or a mild familiarity with American popular culture that the new film based on Sacha Baron Cohen's character "Borat Sagdiev" -- winkingly titled Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan -- is uproariously, pants-wettingly funny. Extracted from perhaps the most hilarious show ever to hit U.S. television (Baron Cohen's Da Ali G Show), and filmed over the course of a year with writers like Patton Oswalt lending a helping hand, it would have taken an anti-miracle for this project, directed by Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm alum Larry Charles, to result in a lifeless dud.

And yet, despite all the laughs that Baron Cohen provides, I still can't shake some of the disappointment I feel over the film, even six weeks after attending the San Francisco black-carpet screening in which the film's eponymous hero appeared as a guest. Yes, Borat is sidesplitting, but it's also hollow in a way that the HBO show's brief sketches are not. As a satire this film is closer to a facile product like South Park than something brilliant like, say, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie.

Of course, now that half the audience has stopped reading because it's clear that I'm a no-fun curmudgeon, I should acknowledge what a ridiculous standard that is. But like it or not, that's the standard Baron Cohen has set for himself with Ali G -- a gut-busting 30-minute farce that often contains some of the best, most incisive cultural criticism this side of whatever Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are doing this week. In the pantheon of comedic genius, it's somewhere between George Carlin and Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Enjoy Borat while you can. Annoying frat boys will be ruining his best catch-phrases in three... two... one...

Some of what keeps Borat from ascending to those heights is conventionality. Unlike the HBO show, the film employs an actual plot (however thin) and another actor (played by the rotund Ken Davitian) who pretends to be from Kazakhstan, like Baron Cohen. These additions might not sound like much, but they're the biggest reason why the film stops dead every few minutes, as both characters are forced to act out weak dialogue in order to move the story forward. Unlike his segments in Da Ali G Show where the audience only sees Borat in "news footage," the film gives us plenty of "off-camera" time with the Kazakh reporter -- where there's a deliberate attempt to develop his character -- and it's never particularly funny.

The reasons why these "off-camera" sections flounder are interesting, because they give insight into why HBO's Borat segments work so well. On one level, it's a point-of-view issue. Traditional Borat sketches involve what someone who just spent 30 minutes on the Wikipedia learning about semiotics might call a "triangular performer/audience dynamic": First there's Borat, making outrageous comments strictly for the sake of generating a reaction. Then there's his victim, not "in" on the greater joke (that this is all fake), reacting. And then there's us, the audience, who gets to laugh at both Baron Cohen's audacity and the victim's cringe-worthy response. This dynamic is the hallmark of all the famous Ali G segments, from Borat's "Throw the Jew down the well" to Bruno's "P-A-R-T-Y."

Needless to say, the film contains a variety of stretches -- from the protracted opening in Kazakhstan to almost every moment filmed inside the reporter's van -- that only work with two of these levels in mind. Jokes are told directly to the camera in a way that's not common to the TV show, and the audience is asked to laugh all the same. The problem is, without a "victim," they're only 67 percent as funny. We're missing the "cringe element" that takes them into the stratosphere.

That Borat needs "victims" in order to make his humor work in full force is one of the most delicate issues of the film. Some critics have skirted it by claiming that A) Borat is ultimately satire, B) satire needs to be cutting, and C) his victims deserve what they get.

They're half-right about the last point. Some of Borat's victims do bring everything on themselves. From the old man at the rodeo who applauds "Kahzahkstan"'s stance on homosexuals (according to Borat, they're lynched) to the group of South Carolina frat boys who openly pine for slavery and women who are only used for sex, there are some truly ugly souls in this film. But not all of Baron Cohen's victims are awful caricatures. In fact, for every mouth-breathing southerner who probably spent his youth on the set of Hee-Haw, there are people who genuinely want to help this stranger in a strange land find his way. This doesn't make Borat's description of a pastor's wife as "not so" appealing to Kazakh men any less funny, but it leaves a queasy feeling in my stomach because it's undeserved.

Borat also falters because of a lack of a consistent delivery. Half the time we're seeing canned, sitcom-like dialogue between fictional characters on a fictional quest, and the other half we're watching guerilla video of the most dynamic performance-comedian since Andy Kaufman. The incongruence is jarring.

And worse yet, it results in an audience that's always guessing if what they're seeing is real or if it's fake. This is particularly apparent during scene where Borat and his producer, Azamat, add a full-grown bear to their caravan. While the stunt is certainly shocking, the staging is clumsy and I couldn't help but wonder if this section was also scripted, like so much of the dialogue and plot movement. The sometimes-genuine sometimes-bogus dichotomy in Borat is a real downer, reducing parts of Baron Cohen's film to a product far less ambitious than its inspiration, like an episode of Jackass. (Or maybe Boiling Points. Either way, a Sunday Stew reference seems appropriate here.)

Now that extended digression is finally over, it's important to note the second element that keeps Borat from being a satirical masterpiece -- and that's his target, or lack thereof.

Is it America? Middle-America? Backwards-thinking foreigners? The whole shebang? The subject of Borat's jokes are varied. Like the writers of South Park, Baron Cohen is an equal-opportunity offender. Nevertheless, his lack of focus hurts any grand claims of social commentary, because Baron Cohen is saying everything and nothing at once. Like Mel Brooks, he seems mainly in it for the joke. Getting us to laugh is his only goal.

And that's okay. In fact, I can't overstate just how okay that is, because Borat is the funniest movie I've seen in years. The film is like the grand fight sequence in Anchorman writ large: inspired, absurd and over-the-top. Baron Cohen even saves his most shocking stunt for last -- a sequence that, regardless of its authenticity, will redefine the way our country sees Borders book signings forever more.

But unlike the show, which is parsed into five-minute segments, always with a specific theme in mind, Borat lacks the truly satirical punch of its inspiration. Part of this is due to the extended format that doesn't cater to a laser-like focus. But part is also due to Baron Cohen's aim, which is clearly to entertain as wide of an audience as possible. Despite all the claims about Borat being an elitist exercise, there's very little here that will go over a 16-year-old's head.

And let me state again: There's nothing wrong with that. A laugh is a laugh, and Borat earns many. But any commentator letting you believe there's more to Baron Cohen's film is falling into a trap. Where so many of Borat's victims assume too little about this man, his supporters are making the opposite mistake: they assume too much.

--

Ryan Wilkins is a San Francisco-based writer. By day he's the senior editor of PROTRADE.com, the stock market for sports.