Like any of Sacha Baron Cohens movies hype has been built for months using smart advertising and even smarter publicity stunts which had left me and everyone else itching to get into the cinema as soon as possible to sit through eighty three minutes of guilty belly laughs.
The story follows Dictator General Aladeen (Baron Cohen)'Beloved Oppressor' of North African country Wadiya in his struggle to take back his seat as evil dictator of his beloved country following a plot to assasinate him on a trip to New York to address the United Nations. Like both his previous films the plot follows an outlandish foreigner being thrown onto American Soil.
The jokes are in bad taste, and some of the references are absolutely shocking, but of course we all knew what we were in for as soon as we paid to see the movie, and i cannot complain one bit. As soon as the movie opened with 'In loving memory of Kim Jong Il' how could i not be hooked already.
Unlike the last two Cohen movies, Borat and Bruno The Dictator is an ordinary (If you can call it that) conventionaly structured fictional comedy which strangely, unlike the predecessors The Dictator has more of a Romcom element to it whereas the other two where filled with 'Candid Camera' style scenes which unfortunately this film has none of, which ultimately led me to finding this film less enjoyable than the previous.
Saying that the movie was an enjoyable one with not a little bit predictable. If perhaps Cohen and Charles had kept to the same type of live action situation gags we saw before this film might have been the best of the bunch. All in all though, defiantly worth a watch or two.
Overall Grade: B-
Is it offensive, mean, and deliberately cruel to the people it's poking fun at? Yes. Is it funny? Definitely. When you go into a Cohen film, you have to realize what you're going to get ahead of time and that's what I got. Good review Sam.
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