Posts Tagged ‘Sacha Baron Cohen’

Sacha Baron Cohen is best known for his controversial and offensive characters like Ali G and Borat. If you enjoyed the antics of those characters then his latest film ‘The Dictator’ will probably be right up your alley. Based on the leader of the rogue African nation Wadiya, the film focuses on Admiral General Aladeen’s battle to ensure that democracy doesn’t come to the country he lovingly oppresses. As is typical in real life there’s plenty of underhanded traitorous behavior among the politicians and the film does a decent job of intelligently poking fun at democracy as we know it. Baron Cohen does a great job of committing fully to his character in all his ridiculousness and you do accept that Aladeen truly believes his policies are what’s best for his people.

I wasn’t impressed with the supposed humour though. The gags are overly predictable and the love story structure is fairly standard and decidedly dull. With so much scope to use comedy to get away with making controversial statements about real world issues I was disappointed with how safe the film felt to me too though there were a few moments of political satire which were particularly funny. Ultimately if you enjoy this style of film then you won’t be disappointed but I recommend you don’t go in expecting to laugh out loud too often.