The Dictator

The opening ten minutes of The Dictator had me laughing out loud, and ready for a great time. And then, the movie kind of bottoms out as soon as the plot kicks in. It almost feels like we're watching a hilariously satirical short film, followed by a depressing and low rent crude Hollywood comedy. Is studio interference to blame? The fact that the movie's running time barely hits 80 minutes, and a number of gags in the trailer didn't make it in the final film certain arouses suspicion.

The film earns its first big laugh before the movie even begins, with a memorial dedication to Kim Jong Il. Then, we're introduced to Admiral General Aladeen (Sacha Baron Cohen), iron-fisted ruler of the fictional Middle Eastern country of Wadiya. We witness Aladeen's many achievements, such as holding an Olympic games (where he rigs all the competitions so that he will win), and spearheading a nuclear program to design weapons of mass destruction, under the guise of creating a program for peaceful purposes. Once again, things seem promising. There are some good gags during these moments, such as how Aladeen sleeps with a number of Hollywood celebrities (Megan Fox has a cameo in this part), and then hangs their Polaroid pictures on his wall, and gazes at them longingly. (They all leave after the sex is over and they've been paid off, none of them ever stay to cuddle.)

During these opening moments, The Dictator seems to be building up to be a sharp and biting satire, but it's suddenly pushed aside for a conventional plot, and the movie never recovers. There are still laughs, yes, but they are much fewer, and not as big. Aladeen is invited to New York to talk before the United Nations. Little does he realize, the whole trip is a trap set up by his scheming Uncle, Tamir (Ben Kingsley), who wants to replace Aladeen with a dim-witted look-alike (Cohen, in a dual role). Tamir hopes to start a democracy in Wadiya, so that he can start oil trading with other nations. He hires some men to kidnap the real Aladeen and shave off his beard, so that no one will recognize him, while the look-alike takes his place before the United Nations. Despite his place as the film's lead villain, Tamir never really gets established as a character, and I think has about three or four minutes worth of dialogue in the entire film. Seeing an actor like Ben Kingsley forced to mainly stand in the background in every scene is depressing, and a total waste. Maybe he did this movie as a favor?

Stranded on the streets of New York City with nobody recognizing him, Aladeen finds himself alone for the first time, until he befriends Zoe (Anna Faris), a feminist who runs an organic food store, and whose sole running gag is that she has a lot of armpit hair. (Ho, ho) A romance of sorts blooms between the two, but it's not very convincing. Part of the problem is the script, which seems to throw in the relationship as an afterthought, and part of the problem is that Cohen and Faris have next to no chemistry together. Both are very funny comic actors, but the script (credited to Cohen, and three other writers) offers them no favors. Neither are given anything truly funny to do in their scenes together, and their scenes seem to revolve around the same basic joke repeated over and over - That Aladeen is used to being a cruel dictator, and doesn't know how to act in social situations.

Repetition actually is a big problem in The Dictator. The movie keeps on returning to the same jokes throughout. It's almost as if the writers couldn't think of enough ideas to stretch this out to feature length, so they just keep hitting the same notes over and over. What makes this especially depressing is how fresh and funny the opening moments seem. It makes you wish that the movie had just stayed in Wadiya, or maybe had gone for the same "mockumentary" approach as Cohen's past two starring projects, Borat and Bruno. That certainly seems to be his comfort zone, as this movie's almost totally on auto pilot once it hits American soil. Also like his past films, Cohen tries to shock us with some crude humor. And while it certainly can be fearless at times, it seems much more forced this time around, and the jokes don't hit as hard.

I still have great admiration for Cohen, and how he tries to be as politically incorrect as possible with his humor. This time, however, he's stuck with an idea that's just too thin, and a character that's not strong enough to carry a film. I did laugh while watching The Dictator. But, as the movie went on, a feeling of disappointment overcame me, and pretty much stayed with me the rest of the running time.

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