Most bad movies are comedies. Everybody in movieland treats the genre like it's easy money. Maybe it's easy indeed to wrap fart jokes together into a pseudo-script and run with it like you invented the cure for cancer. Sometimes it works very well, sometimes you end up with an Adam Sandler film. It's not an enduring art form. THE DICTATOR falls somewhere inside the great continuum between THE BIG LEBOWSKI, AMERICAN PIE and JACK AND JILL. It has purity of intent and a rather coherent discourse, but it has nowhere near the courage of its famed predecessor BORAT.
Sacha Baron Cohen's latest creation, Admiral General Aladeen is a hybrid creation that takes inspiration from the all-time great wacky dictators : Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi and of course, the greatest of them all, Kim Jong-Il. The Supreme Leader of Wadiya is bravely resisting occidental pressures to take control of his nation's oil fields, while preparing nuclear weapons, enjoying himself and oppressing the shit out of his people. When NATO is announcing a preemptive air strike on Wadiya, Aladeen accepts to travel to New York to meet with the United Nations. But traveling is dangerous business for a dictator with many enemies. This U.S trip goes all kinds of wrong.
The best comedy usually relies on inherent context. That's why it's easier to write a stand-up "bit" than a full cohesive movie. When THE DICTATOR keeps to the very reason of its existence, mocking eccentric behavior of foreign dictators and the hypocrisy of our own leaders, it can be hilarious. There is a delightful torture scene, masterfully played by Cohen and John C. Reilly. It made me fall off the couch laughing. Another highlight was the helicopter scene, a quid pro quo about the stark nature of Arabic language and the very American keyword panic, once again acted beautifully by Cohen and his sidekick for the movie Jason Mantzoukas. I thought it illustrated the versatility of Cohen's comic gift very well.
More likely to scare people in flying vehicles for no rational reason.
But THE DICTATOR doesn't always stick to the point and it hurts the movie. There are two major movie inspirations behind it : Chaplin's THE GREAT DICTATOR and Eddie Murphy's COMING TO AMERICA and sometimes, they take too much place. The part of Anna Faris wasn't very pertinent to the movie and too often a vector of easy, empty jokes. For a movie that denounces the narrow-mindedness of American vision of the rest of the world, it plays and awfully American game to give the main character a challenging love interest to help him overcome his cultural ignorance. Narratively-wise, Cohen stays on point with Aladeen but the use of such a cliché form itself pulls the movie away from what made it funny in the first place.
If you compare THE DICTATOR with Sacha Baron Cohen's magnum opus of comedy BORAT, you will find it a lot tighter narratively, but it use of the hero's journey story structure drags a lot of charm out of it and limited its potential. BORAT was pure, in your face cultural defiance and THE DICTATOR is jumping through so many hoops, it creates gaps in the movie where Cohen is forced to improvised and that's where the mediocre poop jokes come from. Don't get me wrong, this type of humor can be extremely funny but never when it's written to cover cramped screenwriting.
Comedy-wise, Sacha Baron Cohen is capable of the best and the worst. He is a gifted agitator, always able to find the funny silver-lining where it hurts the most. He is also very self-conscious about his own writing having a cohesive discourse, something I can appreciate. But THE DICTATOR feels a little rushed. It takes shortcuts, easy routes and ends up almost being the cliché it is trying to make fun of. It's a decent comedy, has a few genuine laugh-out-loud moments, but it's not going to beat father time.