Movie Review: The Dictator

In 2006 I witnessed one of the funniest movies I had ever seen in a theater. Of course I'm talking about Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat. In 2009 he released his follow-up Bruno, which failed to connect with audiences like Borat had. It lacked the "shock factor" of the previous film and in my opinion took a dip in how funny it was. Can Cohen's third film, The Dictator be his comeback, or will it be even worse than Bruno?

In the film, Cohen plays Admiral General Aladeen, dictator of Wadiya. Aladeen prides himself in making Wadiya as opressed as he possibly can, executing citizens for silly reasons and he constantly has the United Nations on his back for his hoarding of nuclear weaopons. When his uncle informs him that the United Nations will be taking serious action on Wadiya, he decides to head to New York to address the United Nations. While there, his uncle Tamir (Ben Kingsley), arranges for Aladeen to be kidnapped and executed. He will then have Aladeen replaced with a double and announce that Wadiya plans on becoming a democracy so he can benefit from the oil reserves the country has to offer. Aladeen narrowly escapes the execution and finds himself alone in New York. He runs into a female activist (Anna Farris) and is given a job at her co-op. While trying to make a life in New York he runs into his thought-to-be executed head nuclear scientist. Together they plan on breaking back into the UN so they can stop democracy from taking place and build a super nuclear bomb.

This is Cohen and director Larry Charles third pairing. In this film they decide to go away from the mocumentary style film and deliver a traditional shot film, probably a good decision with Cohen's face being more recognizable than ever. But how does it stack up against Borat and Bruno. The answer, not well.

As I watched this film, it felt like Cohen and Charles's ideas were being recycled over and over again. The film is an hour and a half long string of slapstick humor and offensive dialouge. That's not to say there isn't some really funny parts, there are, but the bad in this film heavily outweigh the good. It almost felt like they were playing it safe with the amount of stupid slapstick jokes that was in the film in comparison to the non-filter style his previous two films had. What I liked about the previous films was that he was interacting with real people. Cohen loves having that no filter, say whatever I want type dialouge because the reactions he gets from your everyday person is priceless. In The Dictator the jokes feel forced and often times last longer than they should. If Cohen hopes to continue with this style of films, he and his team are going to need to come up with a better idea than what they put on the screen this go around

The rest of the cast is pretty forgettable as well. The whole time I was wondering how Sir Ben Kingsley ended up in this film. He's given next to nothing to do and seemed like a waste. I was embarassed for him. Anna Farris is another problem in the film. Can someone tell me if Anna Farris has ever been funny in anything? Anyone......no? She plays a hippie activist who takes Aladeen in. He's extremely offensive towards her to the point that no one on the planet would tolerate him. She gives the same terrible performance she gave in all four Scary Movie films. In fact this is her worst performance since Scary Movie 4. I read that Kristen Wiig and Gillian Jacobs had also been up for the role of Zoey. What were these casting directors thinking, either would have been leaps and bounds better. The one bright spot for me was John C. Reily's very short part as the very racist bodyguard who is hired to execute Aladeen. I wish we could have seen more of him.

This summer doesn't look very promising. Dark Shadows tanked last week, this is sure to tank and Battleship is already getting destroyed by critics. Bottom line is if you see The Dictator on HBO one night and nothing else is on, go for it, you'll get some laughs but stay away from the theater.

Final Verdict: 4/10