Starring: Sacha Baron Cohen, Anna Faris, Ben Kingsley and John C. Reilly.
Running Time: 83 minutes
Genre: Comedy
The Dictator could have been a great satirical comic piece that highlights flaws of a modern political world in turmoil. Instead we get a comedy that is big, dumb and not clever in the slightest. It turns out to be a great waste of the talented Baron Cohen and of a great premise, which should have been ripe for political and social parody. Instead we are offered a sluggish and obvious comedy that has more misses that hits.
Baron Cohen's Admiral General Aladeen is the leader of the fictional country, the Republic of Wadiya. Likened to mega-rich Middle-Eastern countries with extravagant leaders, Aladeen's spoilt child leadership leads to threats from the U.S. and the U.N., whom threaten his oppressive leadership and summon him to the U.N. Headquarters in New York. Cue his betrayal and the eventual culture clash comedy we haven't seen a thousand times before. Sure some of his early insults aimed at environmentalist feminist Zoey (Anna Faris) are amusing, but it becomes a tired act quickly even in a film that is on the short side as it is. There are subtle moments of humour sparsely spaced out in the film, but they are sidelined in set pieces that act only to be crude and shocking (the helicopter trip, the zip-line scene) and are vitally not very funny. The most disappointing aspect of the film is how little it actually has to say about dictatorship and democracy, instead the focus is shifted to the joys of masturbating for the first time and assassinating anyone who does give Aladeen his way. While a speech at the end comes close to highlighting such political ironies, the preceding hour does very little to be anything more than a Don't Mess With the Zohan* rehash (although aimed at a purely adult audience, unlike Sandler's).
After Borat and Bruno, the team of Charles and Baron Cohen have shown little in the way in progression. They have again settled for crude and shocking humour. Because of this, The Dictator is a disappointing film on so many levels. The political commentary is missing, the gags are not as funny as they want to be (oh look, another penis) and while Baron Cohen is a likeable screen presence (even as a cruel dictator), there is a lack of genuinely funny material and overuse of repetitive gags and a waster of talent (Ben Kingsley in particular) render this a dud.
36
* I haven't seen Don't Mess With the Zohan (thankfully), but from the trailer they look pretty similar in terms of rubishness.
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