Da Ali G Show Da Compleet Seereez
February 2007 Reviewed by: Josh Barber Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

The most surprising movie success of 2006 may well have been Borat. Based on a character from a "news" show that ran for one season on the BBC and two seasons on HBO, the movie was a huge success. If you were one of the millions of people drawn into Borat's odd world, you can also see on this DVD set where the character got his start, Da Ali G Show.

Da Show is done in an interview format, with one of three characters holding the microphone: Ali G, the white ghetto dweller; Borat, the now-famous newsman from Kazakhstan; and Bruno, the Austrian anchor for the fictional Gay TV. Each seems to cover a different subject -- politics, culture, and fashion, respectively. And all are played by Sacha Baron Cohen.

The shtick is that Sacha Baron Cohen never breaks character -- when he's on, he's always on. He doesn't stop being Borat or Ali G or Bruno until the interview is long over. Because the people he's talking to don't realize it's all a big joke, he's free to pick on them, subvert what they're saying or lull them into agreeing with almost anything he says.

The image quality on these sets isn't the best, but that's with a reason: each segment looks like it belongs to the character it features. Ali's bits of the show look like a straightforward cable newsmagazine, Bruno’s have the slightly exaggerated contrast of an entertainment channel, and Borat lives in the grainy, washed-out world right off TV in a former Soviet republic. The show is shot digitally, and the producers were aiming for TV quality, so that's what we get.

The same standards hold for the sound. There’s some incidental music when the scenes change, but because the audio is mostly people talking to one another, the 2.0 track is sufficient.

With only six episodes per season and three episodes per disc, you'd think there would be plenty of room for extras and bonus features. That is not the case. The first episode gets a spotty commentary, the only one in the whole set. There is a glossary of Ali G's unique patois, and the complete movie that the character pitched in Hollywood -- Spyz.

Both "seazons" offer some new Borat sketches, in which the Kazakh reporter goes to a horse show in the Hamptons, visits an American Patriotism rally, learns to play football in Texas, goes hunting and has lunch with the Arizona Republican Party. The second season also features additional segments with Ali G and Bruno, as well as Ali's commencement speech to the Harvard class of 2004. No, really.

You probably already have a good idea of whether or not Borat and his colleagues fit your idea of humor, and this set isn't likely to change your mind. It doesn't offer anything new -- it's just a collection of the two previous releases in a fancy lenticular box. If you already have those, you already have this set. But if you buy into the cult of Baron Cohen and you've held out this long, now's the time to show Ali G some "respek."

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