Directed by: Larry Charles
Written by: Sacha Baron Cohen, Alec Berg, David Mandel, Jeff Schaffer
Way, waaaay back in 2009, I went to see Sacha Baron Cohen's Brüno, which was the comedian's follow-up to the hysterically funny 2006 mockumentary Borat. It was a packed house, filled mostly with youngsters ranging from 17 to 20, which made me draw the conclusion that this was Borat's target audience looking for more outrageous, "Candid Camera"-meets-"Jackass" style hijinks where Baron Cohen, disguised as some sort of cartoonish foreign journalist, would cause real-life Americans to let slip their own personal prejudices and paint a broad, and at times, shocking portrait of the sociological state of American culture.
However, this time around, rather than playing the clueless, racist, and misogynistic Kazakh reporter from his 2006 film, Baron Cohen portrayed a wildly flamboyant homosexual fashion reporter from Austria. And based on the content of the trailers, commercials, and viral marketing, Paramount Pictures made it pretty clear that:
A. Being a Baron Cohen film, the movie was going to naturally push the boundaries of decency and taste.
B. It was going to be really, REALLY gay.
So, if anything, all the promotional materials gave us fair warning, and gave plenty of notice to those with squeamish and/or homophobic tendencies. And yet, after the movie finished, I heard at least six or seven folks (and that's a conservative estimate) complaining about the content: "Shit, that movie was so effing GAY!" "I didn't think it was gonna be so gross!" And so on and so forth. And I thought to myself:
"Well, what the fuck did you expect? Ella Enchanted?"
(I just realized that I made an Ella Enchanted reference in this review, and therefore the universe must have imploded. Sorry about that.)
After all, a comedian as notorious as Baron Cohen has a raunchy reputation that precedes him, and if you're going into one of his films, you'd definitely do best to expect the unexpected. As such, when I went into his newest film, The Dictator, I possessed that very mindset. And yet, while I was expecting genius satire that pushed the envelope more than ever, I left the theater disappointed that I spent an hour and half watching a film loaded with an uninspired premise, extraordinarily lazy jokes that could be seen from miles away, and a blatant waste of an otherwise brilliant man's talents.
Admiral General Aladeen (Sacha Baron Cohen) is the strongman dictator of the North African nation of Wadiya, and is living on Cloud Nine, even if that cloud is being lifted on the backs of his incredibly oppressed people. Living in a lavish, gold-plated palace, surrounded by massive security detail, able to bed whatever Hollywood starlet he wants, and perpetuating a cult of personality that includes his name replacing 300 different words in the Wadiyan language, life is good for Aladeen as long as democracy doesn't rear its head in his land.
After being criticized by the United Nations for pursuing nuclear materials, Aladeen is persuaded by his lieutenant Tamir (Sir Ben Kingsley) to address the U.N. in New York City. After arriving (and vociferously booed by anti-Aladeen protesters), Aladeen is suddenly kidnapped by treacherous forces. Escaping but deprived of his trademark beard, Aladeen is unable to convince the U.N. that he is the genuine article, especially now that an Aladeen double (Sacha Baron Cohen) has taken his place.
It's outside of the United Nations where Aladeen encounters Zoey (Anna Faris), a bohemian, anti-Aladeen vegan co-op proprietor who mistakes Aladeen for a Wadiyan dissident, and offers him a job out of sympathy, despite his flagrant sexist, racist, and fascist attitudes. After reuniting with Nadal (Jason Mantzoukas), his former nuclear scientist that he believed he had executed, Aladeen becomes determined to infiltrate the United Nations summit and reclaim his rightful place as Wadiya's beloved dictator before his homeland falls prey to what Aladeen hates most: democracy.
At first, The Dictator hit the right notes. The first thing that appears onscreen is a memorial still dedicated to the recently deceased Kim Jong Il. Following that, we get a series of news videos laying out the playboy lifestyle Aladeen enjoys, from winning rigged Olympics-style games to bedding countless starlets (including a very game Megan Fox playing herself).
The fact that Baron Cohen's satirical targets this time around include the Middle East, terrorism, and Arabic culture would seem to guarantee shocking, politically incorrect, and truly unforgettable material. But what made his Borat (and to a lesser extent, Brüno) work was the nature of and approach to the comedy: namely, an in-character Baron Cohen acting outrageously in a real-world setting with real people not privy to the joke. By making his character deliberately bigoted, Baron Cohen was able to extract bigoted and unflattering comments from his marks (and the humor would come not from the bigotry, but the shocking frankness of their attitudes and close-mindedness in this day and age).
But unlike those previous two films, The Dictator is actually a conventional, scripted comedy, meaning that everyone involved is in on the joke, entirely depriving the film of surprise and shock value. What we get instead is a shambles of a narrative glued together with jokes and sketches that barely hold the film together. Yes, the antisemitic, racist, and sexist things that Aladeen does are offensive and edgy, but haven't we seen this stuff before? The Baron Cohen of old was able to take those jokes and make them funny by casting a critical light on the bigotry itself, but here, it's merely fodder to pad the short running time.
It doesn't help that you can predict most if not all of the jokes long before they happen. A joke about Chinese people replacing their R's with L's? Check. An unnecessarily long helicopter tour scene where Aladeen inadvertently frightens two tourists with terroristic imagery and gestures? Check. Anna Faris' hippy vegan character being subjected to every single cliche connected to hippy vegans? Check. Arab stereotype after Arab stereotype? Check.
Not only are the jokes predictable, but some of them drag on longer than humanly necessary, including a restaurant scene where Aladeen conjures up fake name after fake name inspired by signs and notices on the walls; a somewhat tasteless sequence involving Aladeen and his former nuclear consultant (an okay Mantzoukas, whose comment regarding Crocs give the film its best line) infiltrating a funeral to obtain a decoy beard; and an overlong gag involving Bobby Lee's Chinese diplomat that serves as a vehicle for a string of fellatio jokes (one involving a cameo by a well-respected actor that I would have NEVER predicted showing up here). It's as though director Larry Charles (who helmed Baron Cohen's last two films) was unsure of his skills as a director of scripted comedy, and therefore took a page from the Mike Myers Book of Cinematic Overkill (including bogging the great Ben Kingsley down with a pointless role unbecoming of his stature).
But what's probably the worst thing about The Dictator's humor is its half-hearted attempts to be offensive, immediately try to avoid accusations of insensitivity by reminding us how, you know, super-NOT-cool bigotry is (usually in the form of Faris' character), and then go right back to the offending material. You don't know whether he's trying to play it safe or push those proverbial boundaries, and it's this comedic and thematic inconsistency that sinks the film like a rock.
And it's really disappointing too, considering that there are brief rays of brilliant, Baron-Cohenesque light that shines through the cracks. At times, the "Lovable Bigot" role that the comedian perfected with Borat works with Aladeen's fish-out-of-water schtick (his late-in-life discovery of masturbation is priceless), and a climactic speech that puts an unexpected spin on the state of American politics in comparison to totalitarianism is hugely inspired.
But that doesn't make up for the jarring laziness, desperate attempts at edgy humor, poor pacing, and lack of true sociopolitical daring for which Baron Cohen is best known. My appreciation for the man and his vast comedic talents had me hoping for something great. But a Great Dictator this is not, and its stronghold on the audience is toppled long before the credits hit.
Letter Grade: "D+"
Nice review of the movie.
ReplyDeleteCheck out my review .
Cheers!