THE DICTATOR

Those of whom who say that Hollywood doesn't do anything edgy need only look at Sacha Baron Cohan. Since 2006's Borat, Baron Cohen has been a staple of biting, gross out political satire. He uses extreme characterizations to expose and deconstruct the way bigot's view minority groups (immigrants, the LGBT community, etc.). Even though his characters often predate the movies in questions, he has a great sense of timing, which continues unabated. This time his target are the North African/Mid-East dictatorships that have been challenged by the Arab Spring revolts in the last year.

Baron Cohen plays Admiral General Aladeen, dictator of the fictional North African country Wadiya. Aladeen lives his life as decadently as he can. He can buy anything from gold plated cars to a night with Megan Fox (but she refuses to cuddle). He competes in his own private Olympic games and shoots anyone who might beat him. The most amusing abuse of his power is that he changes all of the words for positive and negative to his own name. A doctor asks a patient: "Do you want the Aladeen news, or the Aladeen news?"

Eventually, Aladeen goes to New York to address the United Nations but is betrayed by his primer Tahir (Ben Kingsley) and his American bodyguard (John C. Reilley). Aladeen manages to escape torture and death but looses his beard. Roaming the streets, unrecognized by everyone, he meets Zoey (Anna Faris) who owns an ultra leftist, health food store. He is also helped out by a nuclear scientist (Jason Mantzoukas) that Aladeen thought he had executed.

it's a very different kind of film than Baron Cohen's other satires. Gone is the psudo-documentary, performance art style of Borat and Brüno. Some have suggested that Baron Cohen has gotten too famous to go unrecognized anymore, but more likely the approach didn't make sense for the character. Regardless, he and director Larry Charles have gone the other way and made something more recognizable as a traditional film with a strong narrative full of recognizable actors. As a result, the film doesn't resemble Punk'd as much as it does Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator or The Marx Brother's Duck Soup. The comic tone is all over the place, sometimes pointedly political, often obscene, sometimes sweet and often just bizarre. It's an anarchic stew from Baron Cohen, and I can't wait to see what else he can do with this approach. All hail Aladeen!

Grade: B+