Located in North Africa, Wadiya is governed by the eponymous dictator, Admiral General Hafez Aladeen (Sacha Baron Cohen). He rules his country with an iron fist, executes anyone who slightly displeases him, sleeps which any celebrity he wants, and does whatever he wants. But revolution is brewing - his uncle and right hand man, Tamir (Ben Kinglsey - master of the paycheque movie role), is plotting to replace Aladeen with a lookalike to bring democracy to Wadiya and sell the Wadiyan oil reserves.
Apparently based on a story written by Saddam Hussein, like many other Baron Cohen movies, the laughs are politically incorrect, very cheap, and come flying thick and fast. Unlike his other movies, this seems pretty scripted and has actors in defined roles. This is good because the humour is less-cringe inducing and less reliant on ambushing as seen in his other movies (e.g. Borat). However the use of a script is also a slight negative because some of it gets a bit heavy-handed, particularly the speech at the UN which has been clearly scripted to show that the US acts more like a dictatorship than democracy.
I don't know, on one hand I really enjoyed this but on the other, I did feel kind of disappointed. Not because of the heavy reliance on non-pc humour - I like to poke fun at people who only eat organic as much as the next person! - but, I don't know! I think it's partly because the movie definitely shows how Baron Cohen understands politics and the way people like to think various political and social things in a *good* vs. *bad* way, but showing that message is heavily reliant on saying and showing things in the cheapest way possible.
Dedicated in loving memory to Kim Jong Il, The Dictator is funny, possibly not as funny as Borat, still good for laugh out loud moments.
5-6/10
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