Cruel dictator Admiral General Hafez Aladeen (Sacha Baron Cohen) is honored with a parade upon his arrival in America
THE DICTATOR (Larry Charles, 2012)
Opened Wednesday, May 16
www.republicofwadiya.com
Actor and writer Sacha Baron Cohen creates indelible, outrageous characters that go where no one has gone before. Starting out with the hip-hop prankster Ali G and continuing with Kazakh journalist Borat and Austrian fashion reporter Brüno, Baron Cohen has skewered the sociopolitical scene, religion, and everything else that lies in his hysterical path. In his latest film, The Dictator, he plays Admiral General Hafez Aladeen, the Supreme Leader of the fictional North African nation of Wadiya. Obsessed with sex and celebrities ― and sex with celebrities ― Aladeen, who has ruled the desert country since he was a child, is determined that it not become a democracy. When he arrives in New York to give a speech about the future of Wadiya to the United Nations, he is kidnapped by a Secret Service agent (John C. Reilly) and replaced by a ditzy double who will do the bidding of his longtime right-hand man, the greedy and power-hungry Tamir (Sir Ben Kingsley). Soon Aladeen is working in a Park Slope food coop for radical feminist Zoey (Anna Faris) and plotting to regain his throne and protect his reign. Influenced by such classic sociopolitical comedies as Woody Allen’s Bananas and Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator, Baron Cohen and director Larry Charles (Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, Brüno) serve up far fewer hits than misses in The Dictator, but there are still more than enough belly laughs and clever jokes to make the film work. Charles and Baron Cohen are by now expert at turning racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, religious fundamentalism, capitalism, and other isms inside out in riotous ways, never hesitating to cross a line to make their point ― and try to get a laugh in the meantime. Though often too silly for its own good, The Dictator saves itself with a grand finale that one-ups even Chaplin. The excellent soundtrack includes Arabic versions of songs by REM and Al Green, while the film features all-star cameos by Megan Fox, Edward Norton, Chris Elliott, Fred Armisen, J. B. Smoove, Aasif Mandvi, Chris Parnell, and others.