'The Dictator'
No one promotes a movie like Sasha Baron Cohen. To go as far as doing it in character, he is that talented, and I have always really admired, to have the sheer bravery to that sort of thing. Baron Cohen's brand of comedy first showed up on the 90's 'The 11 O'clock show' as Ali G, where he was so successful it brought about a spin off Ali G show and movie. Both did well, but he struck gold with his next character 'Borat', set in the real world, he plays a Kazakhstan news reporter, who travels to America to learn about their culture, put in real situations, it made a few Americans look uncomfortable, bring out insecurities in them and make them look like absolute idiots. It was magnificent! His next film was about a Gay German fashion reporter named Bruno, which was kind of the same thing as Borat, didn't work so well. But all have raked in at the box office, so keep the winning formula going eh Sasha?
Haffaz Alladeen (Baron Cohen) is the ruthless and quite mad Dictator of the African nation Waadeya, who has massive plans of a nuclear weapons program to make the world stand up and take notice. Well the United Nations do, and summon upon Alladeen to explain his actions. But his bizarre ways land him in some very unusual situations.
Well the first half hour rolls by, and I didn't really do a lot of laughing, There are a few very, very funny bits throughout, but overall, it just didn't really work. It just wasn't really gelling together really, with some very flat jokes and not a massively great performance from Baron Cohen, who looks like a mish mash of famous ruthless dictators. Just not really on form for me. Ben Kingsley looked a bit lost as well in a smallish, but important roll.
I liked some of the absurdness and the cleverness of the jokes, which could be quite filthy or disgusting. I don't really want to give any of them away, but look out for a birth scene. The jokes could really offend people of a sensitive nature, but it's more poking fun out of the character more.
Just a not very good end product really, but does show few sparks of comic genius. Could have had a bit more attention to the script and the story, to beef it up a lot more. It will score big time at the box office, through the strength of the power of the advertising.
2.5 out of 5
2 comments:
I reasonably liked 'Borat', but it didn't suck me in enough to watch Bruno. I'm fairly disinterested in Dictator, but may go for a cheap laugh.
Good blogging Rossy.
Good review Ross. Wasn’t as funny as Borat, or even Bruno for that matter, but it still made me laugh a lot more than I expected to mainly because of Baron Cohen’s style of humor. He’s always so mean with his roles, but is perfect at staying in character the whole way through.
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