The Dictator (DVD) > Reviews (1)

The Dictator is the latest movie from Sacha Baron Cohen who seemingly has given up on his TV career to focus on Movies. With a lot of publicity, interviews in character and TV adverts this film was released yesterday to packed audiences across the country most of which will have had high expectations based on the genius of Bruno and Borat. Did it live up to the hype, is this a comedy worth seeing? My overriding answer to that question would be yes!

I do not want to go into plot details too much but basically Cohen plays The Dictator of Wadiya, a fictional African state, who is under UN pressure regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction. Sound familiar? Anyway by one means or another he ends up in USA and well…I won’t say too much. The plot is not overly complicated and is pretty straight forward but gives good grounding for gags and set pieces.

The comedy throughout is what you would expect, jokes about the dictators of past and present, playing up to the icongraphy and myth associated with them and the craziness of the power they hold. The only one criticism I have is that the film starts rather slow with the set up and the laughs early on are thin on the ground but once they start coming around 20 minutes in it pretty much non stop. You know what humour to expect but Sacha manages to make it funny still with some excellent one liners, great cultural references and again showing he is one comedian who is on the ball. A lot of the humour is cringe inducing and one particular moment involving the song “A Moment like this” is so hard to watch but that’s what makes it funny!

The one downside I have to say as well is that it would have been nice to see some “reality” moments in this. I think the best parts of Borat and Bruno are involving unwitting members of the public and celebs. This is 100% scripted and even though it is laugh out loud funny I think it would have benefitted from a few moments with the public. A missed opportunity.

However, do not let this detract you from seeing what is another top quality comedy from one of the on fire comedians of this time. See it for sure!