Movie Review: The Dictator

Directed by Larry Charles
Screenplay: Sacha Baron Cohen, Alec Berg, David Mandel and Jeff Schaffer

Cast:
General Admiral Haffaz Aladeen/Efawadh: Sacha Baron Cohen
Zoey: Anna Faris
Tamir: Ben Kingsley


Synopsis: 

A little African country of Wadiya is a dictatorship ruled by the Supreme Leader Haffaz Aladeen (yes, like Aladin and his Wonderful Gun). Aladeen is a cross between Saddam Hussein (he wants nuclear weapons and he has murderous inclinations), Moammar Gadhafi (he is surrounded by female bodyguards, always wears dark sunglasses and has murderous inclinations) and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (he hates Israel and has murderous inclinations). In other words he lives to oppress the weak and he loves executing people for no reason at all; what's more, the walls in his bedroom are papered with Polaroid photos of him and his famous Hollywood lovers (Arnold Schwarzenegger and Megan Fox among them). A paradise? Unfortunately not.

The nuclear industry of Wadiya is endangered by an evil declaration of UN, threatening that they will attack and destroy all those lovely missiles with pointy heads. Well, nobody can fight all the international community at once so Aladeen decides to visit the nest of snakes, New York, and speak before the UN representatives to avoid the war. On a trip to New York, Aladeen takes crap from a hotel manager (a terrific John C. Reilly), who mistakes him for an Arab. "You're all Arabs to me," says the manager, "the blacks, the Jews, those blue, tree-hugging queers in Avatar." And then the same manager tortures his guest by removing his world-famous black beard and turning Aladeen into an ordinary illegal alien (I love this term). Stripping him of all the power. What can be worse? Only working for a cooperative full of political refugees, led by a little Jewish woman as short and flat as a hobbit…still beggars are no choosers, right? Aladeen has to regain the power or die trying. He might also learn a bit or two about himself and America.


My impressions:

Any Sacha Baron Cohen’s movie usually can be, in my humble opinion, divided into three parts. One part consists of very witty observations and really great irony concerning the world we live in. The second part includes so-so, fill-the-middle stories which hardly deserve a smile and the last part are these horrible lavatory jokes which leave a bad taste in my mouth. I have to say The Dictator was not bad – I enjoyed it better than Borat – but still, it’s a Cohen movie so…

Let’s start with the positives. The plot was ALMOST coherent. I really enjoyed how the skills of dictatorship made Aladeen a very successful manager of that little cooperative shop, owned by Zoey, showing what is really needed to succeed on a very demanding and fully democratic market. Those scenes were brilliant and funny, leaving me laughing helplessly although sometimes that laugh stuck in my throat. I also liked how Cohen exposed ties between politics and big business – Tamir, his second-in-command (a simply great role of Ben Kingsley), plans to introduce democracy not because he believes people of Wadiya deserve it but because he wants to sell oil abroad and become super-rich. Then he will buy a villa in Lake Como next to the mansion of George Clooney, move out and the rest of Wadiya might go to hell with a little help of oil companies. Too densely populated area? Depopulate it.

Still the best scene was that stingingly funny climax in which Aladeen gives his big speech about the good sides of dictatorship. It was the killer sequence which dodged soothing convention and ultimately merits comparisons to The Marx Brothers' Duck Soup and Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator - simply done to perfection. "You don't know how good you have it here," says Aladeen to the heart of democracy. In his country, he claims, the top one-percent controls all the wealth and a dictator can declare war with impunity, even on the wrong country. It must ring a bell, reminding you of the American war on terror, the invasion of Iraq and its sad consequences. Finally let me tell you that the fact that, at the end, Aladeen started to use Jewish slang words, picked up from his NY customers, I found simply hilarious.

My fun ended as soon as Aladeen was becoming sexually aroused. I am really unresponsive to this kind of humour - the hairy armpits of Zoey failed to make me smile and the remarks like: "I love it when women go to school, it's like seeing a monkey on roller skates – it means nothing to them, but it's so adorable for us," make me simply shudder. It is as if Cohen said: 'ok, all you intelligent people satisfied? Great! Now let's cater for those less fortunate ones who also have some disposable income left in their pocket. You know, pecunia non olet' I know what attitude it was supposed to mock; however, I cannot find it even remotely funny. Zoey schooling her new squeeze in the nitty-gritty of jerking off was also rather distasteful and hardly believable (such a stud of a dictator and not knowing some basics? Do me a favour…). The biggest chill I felt watching a scene when Aladeen-the-shop manager helped a female customer in labour. First he flirted with Zoey, then he had to read a text message on his mobile. After delivering the baby he tells the happy parents: ‘I have bad news. It’s a girl. Bring in the trash can.’ Sorry but such a practice is too widespread around the world and too horrible to be an object of  even a half-decent joke.

Final verdict:

Baron Cohen never plays it gentle - if you like his style, you might find The Dictator very amusing. I admit the movie kept me entertained but it was zigzagging through 84 minutes like a drunk madman, spouting forth more or less witty jokes. Its premise was interesting. Still I felt some scenes kind of ruined all the fun.