Wednesday, May 23, 2012

The Dictator Movie Review


       For those of you looking for a movie in the same vein as Borat, which Cohen is by now known for then you will have to look some place else. This movie resembles Ali G then it does is most popular film. In this movie Cohen plays the dictator of the small fictional nation of Wadiya, General Aladeen. Ben Kingsley plays his aid in a role that honestly doesn't utilize him well enough. Throughout the course of the film other famous actors make brief appearances in the film, which surprised me but nonetheless most of these roles had been trivial but had gotten more laughs in the cinema then most of the intended jokes. Anna Faris is in this movie but she is way to under utilized and her character feels kind of bland in comparison to Cohens own. The fact that he was able to get these actors to even appear in his film is enough to warrant attention, but their presence never really takes away from the already all over the place film. Like Borat and Bruno much of the comedy employed is Cohens own style of  satirical racism and sexism mixed in with a little slapstick and like those two movies Cohen can never miss a chance to show everyone in the theatre his bits and pieces. This movie is not as funny as Borat but seems to be on par with Bruno or Ali G. Borat was funny because he took real people and showed how asinine they could be and the comedy worked its way through that but it just doesn't work as often as you would expect. Sacha  Baron Cohen can play eccentric characters (Sweeney Todd & Hugo) but it seems like he is running out of steam. Though in the theatre I was watching this in I heard many people laughing regularly, but I only found myself laugh every so often. Maybe I've just had enough of Cohens own comedy or maybe I just wish he create a funnier version of Borat because Bruno was in my own opinion one of his worst films to date.

    The Dictator is not Cohen best movie and its not his worst, the comedy is spotty at times and the pacing seems to be off but there are laughs to be had and surprisingly his speech on Democracy at the end of the film is excellent and is probably reason enough to watch this film. Will I see this movie again probably but I think if you are going to go see a movie then I would pick something else like I don't know THE AVENGERS because it seems that movie is super popular right now.

6/10
+Cohens style of comedy
+The Dictator character himself is great
-Could have been shorter
-Jokes are not always on par
-Anna Farris underutilized

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