The Dictator

It seems that Sacha Baron Cohen has been the victim of his own success. As Ali G he was able to trick the great and the good into making fools of themselves on a weekly basis, but when he made the move to doing the same trick on film (with Borat) his options suddenly started to dry up as people starting to recognise him on a much wider scale. The result was Bruno, which cut down on the interactions with the general public and replaced them with plenty of gross out humour, much to the detriment of the finished film. In addition any scenes which involved hanging Americans by their own rope had already started to fell old hat (or maybe felt hat in that instance). So now Baron Cohen has had to leave his mockumentaries behind and shoot a “straight” production instead, that being The Dictator. Admiral General Shabazz Aladeen (Baron Cohen) rules over the (fictional) country of Wadiya with an iron fist, but when he is double crossed by his uncle Tamir (Ben Kingsley) in New York he finds himself lost on the streets of the Big Apple whilst a double takes his place. Soon enough he meets Zoey (Anna Faris), the owner of an alternative lifestyle shop, and attempts to gain his crown back. As you can imagine it’s all outrageously silly and Baron Cohen blends nicely into the main role. There’s two main problems with the film though. The first is that, despite a few decent scenes (Aladeen using signs in a restaurant as fake names being one of the better ones), it isn’t all that funny and many times the same joke is repeated. Numerous scenes appear to be badly improvised as well and drag on for too long looking for one last laugh and the cut should have been made in the editing room a lot sooner. The director here is US TV comedy veteran Larry Charles, but it’s not clear what he can really bring to the show in a production such as this. The other problem is that the storyline is nothing new and anyone who’s seen Duck Soup or The Great Dictator will know the same political points were being made 80 years ago, arguably at a much more dangerous time for the protagonists. Baron Cohen has lost his edge here and mocking modern dictators is hardly cutting edge comedy (TV shows have been doing it for a long long time now). What sums it up best for me is that the UN refused Baron Cohen permission to shoot within the UN building. When the same thing happened to Alfred Hitchcock when he was filming North By Northwest in the 1950’s he just ignored them and used a hidden camera. Would the Baron Cohen of 10 years have given up so easily?

The OC Film Sting Final Verdict
The law of diminishing returns appears to have set in for Baron Cohen. Let’s hope for an improvement next time round. Rating: 4/10.