'THE DICTATOR'

'THE DICTATOR" (R) (3 STARS)

Written by Alec Berg, David Mandel, Jeff Schaffer and Sacha Baron Cohen
Directed by Larry Charles
Actors: Sacha Baron Cohen, Anna Faris, Jason Mantzoukas, Ben Kingsley

Sacha Baron Cohen's movies will never be for the faint hearted and politically correct and a lot of his movies are hit ot miss. I was on the fence a lot with "The Dictator" because it is a hit or miss comedy like Cohen's last movie "Bruno". "The Dictator" doesn't come off as the funniest movie Cohen has done and I was dissapointed a little. I expected this to be his funniest movie what with the premise and all. Still I laughed out loud a few times and I love Cohen's go for broke mentality of not curbing his humor, that involves a lot of vulgarity and shock moments, to fit the mainstream. "The Dictator" has more of a streamlined story that was missing from "Borat" and "Bruno" and I thought some parts of the story were predictable and ho hum. My favorite movie of Cohen's is still the consistently funny "Borat".

"The Dictator" has Cohen playing a mad ruler of a fictional Middle East country and Cohen's Aladeen is loosely based on Sadam Hussein and Ossama Bin Laden. He is summoned to go to New York City for a United Nations meeting because the United States fears that Aladeen has a nuclear weapon so the story here is topical and that is a bonus. Aladeen is kidnapped by a very funny John C. Reilly and released into the city. Aladeen's right hand man, played by Ben Kingsley, hatches a plot to replace Aladeen with a double who will take Aladeen's place in the meeting with the U.N. The plot is very simple and much of the humor comes out of Aladeen trying to adapt to the states and New York City. There are moments that I really found funny and moments that were predictable targets of comedy.

I loved moments like the running joke of how Aladeen uses his name to manipulate his country's every day language. I loved Sacha Baron Cohen's chemistry with Jason Mantzoukas as Aladeen's head nuclear scientist who Aladeen inexplicably hooks up with in New York. They have some funny moments that reminded me of a very funny Abbot and Costello act. Some of the obscene and shocking comedy moments come off as desperate and in no way as funny as the ones in "Borat". Though there are some good ones including a running joke that deals with a severed part of a body that made me laugh out loud and made me grateful I wasn't drinking anything during those moments. Anna Faris is also good here but she has been much funnier and better before. "The Dictator" made me laugh enough even though my initial reaction was dissapointment at the end product, it could have been funnier. That being said I think it is worth a matinee showing because there are enough moments that made me laugh.