Sascha Baron Cohen is making all the rounds today with 'Borat: Cultural Learnings', both in terms of box-office success and legal suits filed against him and the producers of the movie. After a couple of frat boys took the movie studio to court for allegedly getting them drunk and fooling them into making sexist and racist remarks, it's now the turn of the villagers who appear at the beginning of the film to take legal action.

The initial scenes of the comedy were shot in a little hamlet of Gypsies in Romania, although the action takes place in Borat's native village in Kazakhstan. The villagers, led by their mayor, are now saying that they were fooled into believing that the shot was for a documentary that was meant to improve their lifestyle and not to make fun of the fact that they don't even have access to the most common of the necessities, like running water or central heating.

Nicolae Staicu, the mayor, claims that the people he represents were paid between $3.30-$5.50 to perform all the crass acts seen in the movie, they didn't sign any movie contracts and, more important, were not told what the movie was going to be about. Their image has been wrongfully and badly distorted and they will not take such a thing, he says.

'They're making a lot of money - but they've made us a laughing stock. These people are poor and they were tricked by people more intelligent than us. They took one of our 75-year-old ladies, put huge silicone breasts on her and said she was 47. Another man they filmed to look like the poorest person in the world, and one of our men who is missing an arm had a plastic sex toy taped to his stump. We are suing because they were not truthful. They did not film reality. We've really had enough of this.' Staicu told the Associated Press.

The atmosphere in the Roma village is now, because of the way 'Borat' twisted facts, tense and filled with angry voices, the same media outlet informs. A woman spoke to the reporters and said that being dirt poor doesn't mean they can be made fun of in such a way. 'We thought they came here to help us - not mock us. We haven't got anything here. We haven't got running water. We can't even bathe. We are poor people, but we are still people', she said, with tears welling up in her eyes.