Sacha Baron Cohen is known as a character actor and his newest film, The Dictator, certainly gives us a compelling figure in Admiral General Aladeen, the dictator of a fictitious Middle Eastern nation, Wadiya.
In the film, Aladeen is treacherously switched with a bumbling body-double and abandoned in New York City, where Aladeen is forced to confront everyday Americans as he attempts to break into the U.N. before Wadiya is turned into a democracy and he loses power forever.
“The Prince and the Pauper,” a novel by Mark Twain in which a beggar boy and a prince are confused for one another and adopt each other lives for a time, is a fantastic storytelling guide, setting up easily executed and completely relatable character arcs as the “Prince” character must learn humility while the “Pauper” character is rewarded for his own hard-earned wisdom.
Updating the prince to a merciless dictator was famously done in 1940 when Charlie Chaplin masterfully played a Hitler-like character in The Great Dictator. It is a phenomenal movie which I highly recommend (I included Chaplin’s inspirational final speech at the bottom. You should definitely check it out!). When combining its sentiments with qualities of Eddie Murphy’s 1988 film Coming to America and Baron’s own Borat (2006), The Dictator has all the right ingredients to make a good movie and a great comedy, taking on the new generation of dictators.
The Dictator does get it right in a few ways – a decapitated head gag and a child-bearing scene are particularly funny and an ending scene is a searing satire of American politics – but the film has a major problem: The Dictator is all about Baron’s Aladeen character. This is rightfully so since Aladeen is THE dictator in The Dictator. The problem is that the film is then inseparably tied to Aladeen. Whatever qualities Aladeem has, the film in its very nature shares with him. So who is Aladeen?
In the film, Aladeen is treacherously switched with a bumbling body-double and abandoned in New York City, where Aladeen is forced to confront everyday Americans as he attempts to break into the U.N. before Wadiya is turned into a democracy and he loses power forever.
“The Prince and the Pauper,” a novel by Mark Twain in which a beggar boy and a prince are confused for one another and adopt each other lives for a time, is a fantastic storytelling guide, setting up easily executed and completely relatable character arcs as the “Prince” character must learn humility while the “Pauper” character is rewarded for his own hard-earned wisdom.
Updating the prince to a merciless dictator was famously done in 1940 when Charlie Chaplin masterfully played a Hitler-like character in The Great Dictator. It is a phenomenal movie which I highly recommend (I included Chaplin’s inspirational final speech at the bottom. You should definitely check it out!). When combining its sentiments with qualities of Eddie Murphy’s 1988 film Coming to America and Baron’s own Borat (2006), The Dictator has all the right ingredients to make a good movie and a great comedy, taking on the new generation of dictators.
The Dictator does get it right in a few ways – a decapitated head gag and a child-bearing scene are particularly funny and an ending scene is a searing satire of American politics – but the film has a major problem: The Dictator is all about Baron’s Aladeen character. This is rightfully so since Aladeen is THE dictator in The Dictator. The problem is that the film is then inseparably tied to Aladeen. Whatever qualities Aladeem has, the film in its very nature shares with him. So who is Aladeen?
While at times surprisingly funny, Aladeen is crude, vulgar, often just plain offensive, and totally unwilling to give up on overused and tiresome comedic gags. So too is the film.
Comedy is most effective when it catches us off guard. This is why comedians make it a point to challenge societal norms and expectations. This is also why comedy can get so raunchy; safe just isn’t funny. Knock-knock jokes don’t sell tickets. But even so, there’s still a line of decency in comedy. It’s a bit more blurred, but it’s there.
Off the top of my head, a good example was the Comedy Central Roast of Donald Trump. The comics certainly didn't contain themselves within the limits of decency, but it was still largely appropriate and all in good fun. Until Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino (from The Jersey Shore; why he was invited I have no idea) gave his stand-up bit and said some pretty racist things which Comedy Central completely edited out and didn’t air. It just came off as outright mean, ignorant, and intolerant.
Now that may sound a lot like Baron’s previous films, Borat and Bruno, to you. And you’d be right. But that was a bit different - in those films Baron was largely interacting with real people who at the time had no idea they were in a movie. People reacted to the horrible things said. If not greatly entertaining, they were at least interesting looks at how people would accept or revolt against stereotypes and prejudice.
In The Dictator, the director Larry Charles (who also directed Borat and Bruno) employed a full cast of actors to populate the film. This might give the film bigger screen presence, but now, when Baron says something outlandishly horrible, the insults breeze right by the minor characters most of the time. They don’t seem to mind too much. But they should mind. They should mind very much. And their lack of opposition to bigotry creates an awkward atmosphere throughout the film; almost an acceptance of Aladeen’s worldview.
And without any real challenge to who he is, Aladeen largely stays the same. He doesn’t learn acceptance or humility or that it’s not okay to have every other person who serves him executed. And without any story of redemption, the jokes of intolerance are rendered useless. If they are not underscoring Aladeen’s character arc, and if they are too insulting to be truly funny, and if they are repeated so often that any initial humor is soon sucked out of them, then why did we just spend short of 90 minutes being subjected to them?
Not to sound too cynical, but a short running time actually serves The Dictator well. It gives the film a sense of momentum and energy. Most comedies run on longer than they should and wear themselves out. The Dictator tries to avoid this, despite repeating many of the jokes anyways.
Overall, The Dictator does hit some home-runs, but it also strikes out a lot. Baron is a great actor and embodies Aladeen well, he just shouldn’t write his own material (Compare Baron-written Borat and Bruno with other films he was in that he didn’t write like Sweeny Todd and Hugo). You will laugh during the film. Sometimes because the material is truly funny. But mostly because you’re simply incredulous over the ridiculous happenings on the screen. Science has proven that laughter is a common response to awkward situations. That doesn’t mean the situation is always funny.
The Final Word: Don’t even bother.
And now the sensational scene from Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator:
Comedy is most effective when it catches us off guard. This is why comedians make it a point to challenge societal norms and expectations. This is also why comedy can get so raunchy; safe just isn’t funny. Knock-knock jokes don’t sell tickets. But even so, there’s still a line of decency in comedy. It’s a bit more blurred, but it’s there.
Off the top of my head, a good example was the Comedy Central Roast of Donald Trump. The comics certainly didn't contain themselves within the limits of decency, but it was still largely appropriate and all in good fun. Until Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino (from The Jersey Shore; why he was invited I have no idea) gave his stand-up bit and said some pretty racist things which Comedy Central completely edited out and didn’t air. It just came off as outright mean, ignorant, and intolerant.
Now that may sound a lot like Baron’s previous films, Borat and Bruno, to you. And you’d be right. But that was a bit different - in those films Baron was largely interacting with real people who at the time had no idea they were in a movie. People reacted to the horrible things said. If not greatly entertaining, they were at least interesting looks at how people would accept or revolt against stereotypes and prejudice.
In The Dictator, the director Larry Charles (who also directed Borat and Bruno) employed a full cast of actors to populate the film. This might give the film bigger screen presence, but now, when Baron says something outlandishly horrible, the insults breeze right by the minor characters most of the time. They don’t seem to mind too much. But they should mind. They should mind very much. And their lack of opposition to bigotry creates an awkward atmosphere throughout the film; almost an acceptance of Aladeen’s worldview.
And without any real challenge to who he is, Aladeen largely stays the same. He doesn’t learn acceptance or humility or that it’s not okay to have every other person who serves him executed. And without any story of redemption, the jokes of intolerance are rendered useless. If they are not underscoring Aladeen’s character arc, and if they are too insulting to be truly funny, and if they are repeated so often that any initial humor is soon sucked out of them, then why did we just spend short of 90 minutes being subjected to them?
Not to sound too cynical, but a short running time actually serves The Dictator well. It gives the film a sense of momentum and energy. Most comedies run on longer than they should and wear themselves out. The Dictator tries to avoid this, despite repeating many of the jokes anyways.
Overall, The Dictator does hit some home-runs, but it also strikes out a lot. Baron is a great actor and embodies Aladeen well, he just shouldn’t write his own material (Compare Baron-written Borat and Bruno with other films he was in that he didn’t write like Sweeny Todd and Hugo). You will laugh during the film. Sometimes because the material is truly funny. But mostly because you’re simply incredulous over the ridiculous happenings on the screen. Science has proven that laughter is a common response to awkward situations. That doesn’t mean the situation is always funny.
The Final Word: Don’t even bother.
And now the sensational scene from Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator:
Great Twain connection! See my review. Will definitely follow, CC
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