Sacha Baron Cohen as The Dictator
The background
The Dictator is the third collaboration between director Larry Charles and character actor Sacha Baron Cohen, following the success of Borat and Bruno. It is loosely based on Saddam Hussein’s novel Zabibah and the King.
The Dictator is the story of the awful Admiral General Aladeen, leader of fictional oil-rich Wadiya, whose heroes include Kim Jong-il and Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. The film follows Aladeen as he survives a deposition plot, but is left alone and unrecognisable, wandering the streets of New York City until Zoey, a political activist, comes to his rescue.
Slapstick brilliance
The press are confirming that none of Baron Cohen’s love of the disgusting and ridiculous has been lost in The Dictator. The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw noted that “there is a horribly funny scene in which Aladeen confronts his nuclear scientist about slow progress and reveals his assumptions about rockets … are based entirely upon cartoons.” Similarly, The Telegraph’s Robbie Collin said “where the film really succeeds is in its embrace of the grotesque … It’s not merely disgusting, it’s dazzlingly so.” Hitfix.com agreed, commenting that, “This is the sort of comedy where the gasp is as important as the laugh, and Cohen earns both repeatedly,” whilst The Washington Times reassured, “not chuckling at jokes about beheading? Don’t worry, before long you’ll have the opportunity to laugh at full-frontal male nudity.” However, Rebecca Cusey from Patheos.com said that the “crude scenes interrupt the flow of the funnier, edgier political material.”
Commitment to character
The critics were impressed by Baron Cohen’s continual dedication to his characters. Joblo.com praised “Cohen’s total emergence into the character, which once again proves that he’s probably the finest character-based comic actor since Peter Sellers.” Katherine Monk of The Vancouver Sun agreed that “Baron Cohen launches himself into the arrogant, sexist chauvinism of the general with … abandon.” Time Out praised “Baron Cohen’s talents as a clown,” which “find their the ideal vehicle in this onslaught of sheer tastelessness.”
Comic integrity?
Most of the critics agreed that The Dictator marks a comic departure from the ‘real-life’ formula of Borat or Bruno. The Telegraph observed that “the people around him are actors, the stakes are noticeably lower than they were in Brüno or Borat.” Hitfix.com argued that this creates “a far more standard comedy than Cohen’s earlier films,” and that it “is far less interested in creating confrontational situations.” Time Out lamented that The Dictator has “far less satirical bite.”