Update: ABC News has also done a story in this.
Car salesman Jim Sell said he also was deceived by the lure of cold-hard cash when the producers of Borat approached him to participate at the Criswell Chevrolet car dealership in Gaithersburg, Md.
“They put [the release] in front of me right when they were giving me the $150,” Sell said.
He didn’t read through the release because the crew had already started filming. Sell also worries that his reputation as a dealer of fine vehicles will be tarnished by the implication that he sold Borat an ice-cream truck. (For the record, he did not.)
Parts of the new movie Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan were filmed in Gaithersburg, at Criswell Automotive. From a story in the Baltimore Sun:
Others featured in the film, including a Gaithersburg car salesman, found out about their roles in similar ways.
At Criswell Automotive, a Chevrolet dealership in Montgomery County, salesman Jim Sell has been interviewed by several national entertainment reporters, operations manager Tony Bartolomeo said yesterday.
Sell wasn’t working yesterday, but Bartolomeo said that Sell “is just not sure what he said” in the film. So, Bartolomeo said, his colleagues planned to see the movie last night.
Also featured in the film is Perry Hall driving instructor Mike Psenicska.
The Borat movie is in somewhat limited release. According to Google Movies, it is currently showing locally at Rio, Regal Germantown and Regal Rockville. The movie is receiving rave reviews; the website Rotten Tomatoes, which tabulates reviews from other sources, calculates that 96% of reviews — 123 out of 128 — have been positive.
Update: As of 11/13/06, the positive review count is up to 145 out of 157 (92%) with 100% of the 36 top-tier reviewers giving positive reviews. Release has expanded fourfold and it has also led the box office two weekends running, with a total take after less than two weeks of release of over $67 million.