A newspaper reviewer in Kazakhstan has called Borat "the best film of the year," even though it stars a comedian pretending to be a sexist, racist, homophobe from the Central Asian country.

Karavan, a leading weekly tabloid, sent a correspondent to Vienna to view Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

Actor Sacha Baron Cohen arrives in character as Borat for his film's premiere in Los Angeles, Oct. 23, 2006.
(Matt Sayles/AP)

The Kazakh government has told local cinemas not to run the film, saying it was "offensive." It has pitched a year-long battle against comedian Sacha Baron Cohen for making the country look backward and rampantly racist and misogynistic, even threatening to sue at one point.

"Cultural Learnings is certainly not an anti-Kazakh, anti-Romanian or anti-Semitic.… It is a cruelly anti-American movie. … It is amazingly funny and sad at the same time," reviewer Andrei Shukhov wrote in Friday's paper.

"I think this is the best film of the year."

The comedy has been embroiled in controversy.

Cohen, who is 35 and a devout Jew, developed the character of Borat for his immensely popular British television show, Da Ali G Show.

As part of his shtick in the film, Borat interacts with ordinary people who supposedly aren't aware that he is bogus and not a real Kazakh journalist undertaking a supposed "fact-finding" trip through the U.S.

The film starts with scenes in what is presented as Borat's hometown in Kazakhstan. The villagers are portrayed as stupid, crude, incestuous folks who let cows live in their homes, have sex with their sisters and engage in an annual tradition similar to the running of the bulls in Spain — except it involves giant, racist portrayals of a Jewish man and wife.

The scenes not only upset Kazakhstan's government, but people in the remote and impoverished Romanian village that stood in for a Kazakh village in the film. Those villagers have threatened to sue the filmmakers, accused them of falsely describing their purpose and putting the villagers up to contrived stunts.

Some of the Americans caught in Borat's elaborate hoax have sued the producers and Cohen. They include two fraternity brothers who were caught on film making racist comments.

Reaction hurt Kazakhstan more than satire: politician

The Kazakh government had threatened to sue but then backed off, saying it understands the film is a satire. As Borat, Cohen has revealed that Kazakhs drink fermented horse urine and don't allow women to drive.

'By himself being anti-Semitic, he lets people lower their guard and expose their own prejudice.'— Sacha Baron Cohen

Dariga Nazarbayev, a politician and the daughter of Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev, says the government's reaction hurt the country's image much more than Cohen's satire itself.

"We should not be afraid of humour and we shouldn't try to control everything, I think," Nazarbayev told Karavan in an interview in April.

Cohen recently told Rolling Stone magazine: "Borat essentially works as a tool. By himself being anti-Semitic, he lets people lower their guard and expose their own prejudice.

"The joke is not on Kazakhstan. I think the joke is on people who can believe that the Kazakhstan that I describe can exist."

The comedian also said Kazakhstan was chosen because it was "a country that no one had heard anything about."