So anyway, I have this system for Saturday nights. I know how my behaviour will be affected by whatever alcoholic beverage I have been consuming. Newcastle Brown tends to make me maudlin and self-deprecating, tequila makes me black out and talk sh1te, and whiskey makes me giggle like a madman and causes a savage case of brewers droop. It’s good to know which brands to avoid when I’m in a particular mood, which leads me nicely around to “Ali G Indahouse”, the full-length feature starring Sacha Baron Cohen’s satirical B-boy of British TV (in)fame. If you know your comedy, you know that Ali is a Viz cartoon writ large, but with a bit less swearing. If you’re easily offended, I believe the Princess Diaries might be a better venture.

Thing is, while there are many laughs, they never reach belly laugh status - and you have to wait a while for the killer giggles. If you’re a big kid like me, you will be chortling along to the sight of Ali and posse winning the day by demonstrating their body-popping skills, or at the sight of Ali’s penis performing “electric boogaloo” (thankfully contained within his slacks). On the other hand, you may not be quite so taken with the numerous nob, skunk and sex antics – this is playground level stuff, to the point where this will be inaccessible to folks unfamiliar with some UK school gags. Mercifully, it never goes as far as the dire Scary Movie. Where this differs from the über-gross-out of the Wayans brothers’ opus is that it has a well-realised character at the centre of it (this may also be why it slammed in at the top of the UK box office in its first week of release). Ali’s catchphrases may grate, but he doesn’t overdo them – in fact they are funnier at times than on the small screen.

None of the more “edgy” jokes are drawn out too long – you can imagine the West Staines collective using the “n” word amongst their blatantly white collective for the whole movie after the first meeting - this is dropped straight away. Cohen probably wanted to avoid a Tarantino/Spike Lee style clash. This said, the entire premise is based around laughing at wannabe gangstas who are whiter than Iceland – so if the concept of a blatantly Jewish ex-goth (there’s a funny but slight flashback scene to Ali’s disco days) calling women bitches and doing some pathetic breakdancing after falling on his ass makes you want to hurl into the gaping maws of the creators – steer clear.

Fans of the show will not be disappointed, Ali manages to take the p*ss out of everyone he comes into contact with, but this is never really more than a series of jokes threaded on a cotton-thread thin plot, much like Wayne’s World. For non-converts, this may well still be worth a look, there are many run of the mill moments, but some solid giggles to be had. My favourite parts were the introduction of Ali’s nan, the entire UN getting mashed off their tits on “herbal” tea, and the body-popping finale is G-nius (get it?). There are times when you get stabbed in the eye by the rip-off knife, mainly in the movie pastiche department (Entrapment’s use of dust to reveal lasers in a room is re-done using a hash pipe), but there is still some fresh Ali-tainment to be had.