I feel sorry for Sacha Baron Cohen. After viewing his recent comedy offering in The Dictator, I feel that he’s become so famous that he cannot fully succeed at developing his comedy characters anymore.
Dictator sees the arrival of Admiral General Aladeen (Baron Cohen), the despot leader of a fictional North African oil rich republic, to America. Whilst preparing to deliver a speech to the United Nations in New York, his right hand man disposes of him, and replaces him with an impostor, causing Aladeen to try and survive on the streets of NYC, and go on a quest to rehabilitate himself, before reclaiming his kingdom, all whilst dealing with his feelings for political activist Zoey (Anna Faris, What’s Your Number?).
Unlike Borat and Bruno, The Dictator doesn’t have any mockumentary bits at all; losing some of it’s realism in the way these comedies attempt to analyse people’s reactions to his characters. It’s true Baron Cohen has got to the level where he can’t really do anything like interviews with celebrities who don’t know who he is (because he’s that famous now), but I doubt there were any attempts to do anything like them; mainly because, well… what can you do with a dictator for a fictional north African country?
So instead The Dictator sinks into a straight comedy like Ali G: In Da House (way before Baron Cohen became truly famous), except whilst Ali G had some ludicrous charm about him, General Aladeen is not that engaging and won’t be remembered in nearly the same way as Borat and Ali. A big problem is that without the mockumentary style (used as a background to cover jingoistic reactions to foreigners in Borat, and fame in Bruno), it just doesn’t have the same punch and message; it’s in there with scenes like the helicopter over New York, but the people reacting to it are actors, not real people, and so it loses all of it’s impact.
There are likeable bits in The Dictator; the celebrity cameos are a riot (some are surprisingly out of character, and some reinforce what they must be like behind closed doors), and a hidden highlight was the Arabian reworkings of songs (obviously aided by Baron Cohen’s elder, musician, brother Erran), which provide hilarious covers of classics like “9 To 5” and “Everybody Hurts.”
To be honest, The Dictator isn’t particularly funny. When you get over the shock tactics on some of the jokes they’re not memorable. Some of the gross out bits will make you laugh, but none of the jokes will stick with you compared to ones from Bruno and Borat. I honestly can say Ali G was better than this; at least that had a coherent story, someone to get behind, and better jokes.
I dunno about this one. I can see what Charles and Baron Cohen were going for but I think it just falls flat on it’s face. Aladeen isn’t engaging enough and the usual clever satire is non-existent. I did laugh, but more at the fact just how extreme Baron Cohen has to go now to top himself with each one of his characters instead of the actual jokes. Disappointing (turns around and signals to chop head off).
