The Dictator (2012)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2012
	Director: Larry Charles (Borat, Brüno)
	Actors: Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat, Brüno), Anna Faris (May), John C. Reilly, Ben Kingsley (Ender's Game)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 27.09.2016, VOD, 32" TV
Synopsis: Aladeen (Cohen) is a ruthless dictator in a country living from oil. He travels to the USA in order to negociate the opening of his country to the World.
Review: I am not a huge fan of Sacha Baron Cohen but some moments in Brüno and especially Borat made me laugh. The Dictator doesn't seem to contain scenes with involuntary actors, so it doesn't have that Documentary style of Borat. But the humour is the same: very crude and shamelessly hitting at all people or minorities, thus reminding me a bit of You don't Mess with the Zohan with Adam Sandler. And I guess it is because of this equal treatment that the movie (and Cohen) gets away with being extremely vulgar and irreverent towards religion and customs of so many people, with often a touch of racism. Cohen's role is an exaggerated depiction of any African of Middle-Eastern dictator, with the added trait of extreme stupidity that lead to some absurd funny situations. He is accompanied by Ana Faris used to this kind of dumb movies since her starring in the Scary Movie franchise. There are a few funny scenes (if you like this kind of humour of course), and what made me especially laugh are the cover songs from American hits to the Arabic style and with many words replaced by Aladeen, especially the hip-hop Aladeen Motherf*cker. And the best moment of the movie is a single quote from the Dictator to the UN assembled before him (copied at the end of this post) and that without a doubt tries to mirror another monologue from another movie with the same title starring Charlie Chaplin.
Rating: 4 /10 Quote from The Dictator: "Why are you guys so anti-dictators? Imagine if America was a dictatorship. You could let 1% of the people have all the nation's wealth. You could help your rich friends get richer by cutting their taxes. And bailing them out when they gamble and lose. You could ignore the needs of the poor for health care and education. Your media would appear free, but would secretly be controlled by one person and his family. You could wiretap phones. You could torture foreign prisoners. You could have rigged elections. You could lie about why you go to war. You could fill your prisons with one particular racial group, and no one would complain. You could use the media to scare the people into supporting policies that are against their interests."