The Dictator
Sacha Baron Cohen is starting to get to the end of the line when it comes to comic creations such as Borat, Bruno, and now, Admiral General Aladeen. At least, it felt like it to me watching his and director Larry Charles’s latest stunt comedy. I mean, he can’t sneak up on people like he did in his revolutionary 2006 breakthrough, “Borat,” and honestly, watching his witty, deeply felt performance in Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo,” I don’t know how many more times I want to see Cohen try the same act over and over.
Here, Cohen plays the ruthless, ridiculous dictator of the fictional North African country of Wayida. Like so many before him, he has flounted UN sanctions and threats of military action from the United States in the hopes of building a nuclear arsenal as he oppresses his people. However, on the urging on his first-in-command (played by “Hugo” co-star Ben Kingsley), he makes a trek to New York City to speak to the UN before military action is taken. But it isn’t long before he is taken hostage, his beard shaven, and almost killed by his own people, leaving him alone to walk the streets of Manhattan, where he “befriends” a feminist American woman (Zoe, played by Anna Faris), who tries to get the sexist, racist Aladeen to adjust to life in American. However, Aladeen has other plans, especially when his dictatorship is at risk to falling, being replaced by, gasp, democracy.
Unlike “Borat” and “Bruno,” “The Dictator” is less of a mockumentary stunt than a straight-forward narrative comedy. Like “Bruno,” however, the humor is very scattershot– while all of it is pointed and blissfully satirical, it just doesn’t land as successfully as the biting, hilarious commentary that took us by surprise in “Borat.” That said, Cohen and Charles (who also directed the sly documentary, “Religulous”) have plenty of ridiculous, ridiculing humor left in them, especially when you hear great, Arab-tinged covers of famous American songs. Still, I’m looking forward to the day when Cohen gets this type of approach out of his system, and shows us what he’s really capable of as a performer.
