The Dictator

Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on September 2012

In Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest paean to PC, Admiral General Aladeen is a blend of Kim Jong Il and Muammar Gaddafi, with a pinch of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. On a visit to the UN, he falls victim to a palace coup and is thrown onto the streets of New York, where no one will believe he is who he is. It’s sly and witty (particularly one spot-on speech) and sporadically laugh-out-loud funny, but it’s also fairly conventionally structured for a Cohen movie. The outrageousness is there, but this no longer the street-level guerrilla comedy that worked so hilariously in Ali G (Brit TV, not the movie) and Borat.