The Dictator Review

Rated R (Strong Crude and Sexual Content, Brief Male Nudity, Language and Some Violent Images)

Running Time: 1 Hour & 23 Minutes

Cast-

Sacha Baron Cohen-Admiral General Hafez Aladeen/Efawadh

Anna Faris-Zoey

Ben Kingsley-Uncle Tamir

Jason Mantzoukas-Nadal

John C. Reilly-Clayton

Bobby Lee-Mr. Lao

Megan Fox-As Herself

Edward Norton-As Himself

Directed by Larry Charles

Admiral General Aladeen (Sacha Baron Cohen) demands you to smell his finger!

One of my classmates had recently seen director Tom Six’s 2009 body-horror flick “The Human Centipede [First Sequence]” and during a conversation among his friends, he repeatedly referred to the character Katsuro played by Akihiro Kitamura as ‘the Chinese guy.’ I explained to him that Katsuro and the actor who played him were Japanese but still he would refer to him as Chinese! I soon got annoyed and yelled at him to correct his error, prompting him to respond that Asians ‘all look the same.’ It would be more accurate to say that some Asians look similar, not the same. India is part of Asia but its citizens bear no resemblance to Chinese people. This is called a stereotype and is defined by Merriam-Webster Dictionary as an ‘often oversimplified or biased mental picture held to characterize the typical individual of a group.’ Everyone uses stereotypes (even I am guilty of this but I make a concerted effort not to) but not all people who use them are prejudiced; some are just ignorant and/or lazy. Comedians often use stereotypes as a form of satire to expose society’s ignorance and prejudices, a technique that was popularized by Sacha Baron Cohen’s 2000 U.K. television series “Da Ali G Show,” which introduced viewers to three eccentric characters: Ali G, Borat Sagdiyev, and Brüno. Each has been the subject of their own films but it was 2006’s mockumentary/comedy “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” that earned Cohen critical and box office success, although this was not without controversy as the film’s participants felt that they were tricked and threatened legal action. Often pushing the boundaries of what is socially acceptable, Cohen’s latest film “The Dictator” reunites him with director Larry Charles and is a departure from the comedian’s previously unscripted work. Marred by a poorly-written story, “The Dictator” still manages to boasts some solid laughs but its loose collection of boundary-pushing slapstick comedy never entirely gels with the scripted nature of the film. 

For years, the fictional North African Republic of Wadiya has been ruled by Admiral General Hafez Aladeen (Sacha Baron Cohen), a brutal anti-western, anti-Semitic despot who has his country’s entire populace under his thrall and is actively working on obtaining nuclear capability for ‘peaceful purposes.’ After spending the night with Megan Fox, Aladeen is informed by his uncle and second-in-command Tamir (Ben Kingsley) that the United Nations plan to remove him by military force unless he explains himself to the Security Council about his nuclear program. The dictator is unconcerned but agrees to fly to New York City as demanded. Arriving at the hotel, Tamir introduces Aladeen to his new extra bodyguard Clayton (John C. Reilly), who is actually a hitman hired to kill the dictator. Aladeen is kidnapped in the middle of the night while he is asleep and wakes up to see Clayton about to torture him to death. However, Aladeen points out to him that all his torture tools are outdated, forcing him to simply cut off Aladeen’s beard so that his body cannot be identified when he is killed. Unfortunately, Clayton accidentally lights himself on fire when he tries to burn the beard, allowing Aladeen to quickly escape. He makes his way to the United Nations to give his speech as scheduled but sees Tamir has replaced him with a body double named Efawadh (also Sacha Baron Cohen). Unable to convince the security guards of his true identity, Aladeen is rescued by a protesting activist named Zoey (Anna Faris), who offers him a job at her vegan grocery store. In order to regain his rightful position as Supreme Leader, Aladeen finds himself joining forces with Nadal (Jason Mantzoukas), the former head of Wadiya’s nuclear program, in order to prevent his beloved nation from turning into a democracy. 

One thing you have to admire about Sacha Baron Cohen is his willingness to push boundaries without caring who he’s offending and “The Dictator” proudly continues this tradition by dedicating itself to the memory of Kim Jong-il in the opening title card. Sadly, the film is nothing more than a collection of increasingly ridiculous gags held together by a flimsy story. Granted, there are some genuinely hilarious scenes such as a news segment in the beginning that shows Aladeen shooting all the competitors on the running track in order to win his self-named Olympics or changing the words ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ to ‘Aladeen,’ leading to a funny bit where a man both smiles in relief and cries in sorrow when he is told by his doctor that he is HIV-Aladeen. Later, we see Aladeen forlornly staring at his wall of photographs of every celebrity he has slept with (which includes Oprah Winfrey and even Arnold Schwarzenegger) and playing a Wii game that allows him to reenact various tragedies such as the Munich massacre during the 1972 Summer Olympics. It’s clear that nothing is off limits (or sacred) to Cohen in the name of comedy but as great as some of the jokes were, the context is not always consistent with the comedic payoff and this dilutes the joke’s impact. At one point, Nadal and Aladeen take a helicopter ride to scout out the hotel that the Wadiyan delegation is staying at but despite agreeing to behave as ‘American’ as possible, the two start conversing in their native language while two Midwesterners listen in stunned silence upon hearing the name ‘Osama Bin Laden’ and ‘9/11/2012’ (Aladeen was actually referring to his Porsche model, the 911 2012). It’s a clever way to satirize how ignorant Americans believe that every brown-skinned foreigner is a terrorist but as I pointed out before, the context in which the joke is introduced is inconsistent. This lack of consistency (and logic) plagues the weak narrative as well, leading to head-scratching plot developments where Aladeen falls in love with Zoey despite his extremely racist tendencies or Nadal teaming up with him to get his position back even though the dictator is to blame for his exile in the first place. The film ends with Aladeen giving a speech about the many benefits of a dictatorship and while it’s meant to be an ironic indictment on the present state of democracy, it comes off as half-baked due to the unsubtle way it’s presented. The need to up the ante with the jokes clashes with the need to keep the plot moving and this is ultimately what keeps “The Dictator” from being a nail-biting satire, which is a shame since the film often comes so close to achieving greatness. 

Sacha Baron Cohen is one of the most daring comedians working today who is running dangerously close to being typecast as a one-trick pony. Like his previous characters, Cohen’s Admiral General Aladeen is used as a vehicle to expose society’s hypocrisy in a satirical way but the scripted nature of the film runs counter with his comedic technique. It’s a role he throws himself into with aplomb, mixing elements of real-life dictators such as Kim Jong-il’s cult of personality and Muammar Gaddafi’s Amazonian Guard with playful glee, yet audiences will likely feel they’ve seen it all before. Playing Aladeen’s love interest is a severely underused Anna Faris and the lack of any chemistry between her and Cohen magnifies how pointless their romance is. Academy Award winner Ben Kingsley has a small role as Tamir, who makes no attempt to hide that he’s just picking up another paycheck. 

“The Dictator” was released on May 16, 2012 (a Wednesday) and has received mixed reviews with 58% on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics found the film ‘wildly uneven but consistently provocative’ and concluded that it was ‘a decent entry in the political-slapstick comedy genre.’ Managing a respectable $17.4 million and a five-day total of $24.4 million during opening weekend despite the continued box office dominance of “The Avengers,” “The Dictator” has now grossed $52 million domestically, so it at least has a slim chance of matching 2009’s “Brüno.” The audience I saw the film with seemed to enjoy it despite some visible gasps during the more shocking scenes but its low ‘C’ CinemaScore says otherwise and points to how satire often goes over the head of average moviegoers i.e. “The Cabin in the Woods” back in April. Sacha Baron Cohen’s brand of comedy always held a hidden purpose behind the vulgarity as he gets his kicks at poking fun at society’s foibles but “The Dictator” never comes together as a satisfying whole, it’s underdeveloped plot often conflicting with all the jokes.       

Final Rating: 2.5 out of 5

“Why are you guys so anti-dictators? Imagine if America was a dictatorship! You could let 1% of the people have all the nation’s wealth. You could help your rich friends get richer by cutting their taxes and bailing them out when they gamble and lose. You could ignore the needs of the poor for healthcare and education. Your media would appear free but would secretly be controlled by one person and his family. You could wiretap phones; you could torture foreign prisoners; you could have a rigged election; you could lie about why you go to war; you could fill your prison with one particular racial group and no one would complain! You can use the media to scare the people into supporting policies that are against their interests!”