The Dictator

2012 comedy

Rating: 14/20 (Jen: 16/20)

Plot: Jennifer, who is not even pregnant, craved movie theater popcorn. I wanted a banana milkshake. We checked to see what was playing at the dollar theater in Greenwood, Indiana, and found something that at least one of us wanted to see. When we first started dating in Knoxville, Tennessee, we drove to the dollar theater all the time, and it didn't even matter what was playing. We saw Last of the Mohicans, a movie that I didn't even like, twice. We saw Cliffhanger, Dennis the Menace, Son-in-Law with Pauly Shore, and Under Siege 2 without seeing the first one. The popcorn was awful, the floor was sticky, and my attempts to make out with my wife were thwarted. It was just like old times!

This is more Ali G Indahouse than Borat or Bruno, but I thought it was very very funny. It's scripted, an actual movie, but it still has that Cohen flavor and is best when, like in the best parts of those more improvised comedies, he pushes buttons and hits you hard with the satire. And Cohen's not the type of comedian who is afraid of pushing buttons, and he luckily has the type of director in Larry Charles who's not afraid to push buttons along with him. There are more than a few moments in this one where you will almost not believe that he went there, my favorites being a scene that takes place in a helicopter that isn't actually even that well written but still works so beautifully and a masturbation sequence that ingeniously incorporates a scene from Forrest Gump that made me laugh a little more loudly that I prefer to laugh in public. The film's plot isn't all that interesting and it's a bit more derivative than I want to see from Cohen. The love story with Anna Faris is a necessary evil, I suppose. The versatile Ben Kingsley's good, and so is Jason Mantzoukas as Nuclear Nadal. Megan Fox, Edward Norton, John C. Reilly, the ubiquitous Kevin Corrigan, shane-movies favorite Chris Elliott, and Gary Shandling also have Muppet-style cameos. Another thing I liked about this were some of the set details which gave this, on top of the slapstick and oft-crude dialogue humor, a little more of a visual element. With each passing appearance, I'm more and more convinced that Cohen is a comedic genius. The writing, the delivery, the flexibility with the characters, the impeccable comic timing. He's just about the best at what he does, and I'll eagerly await his next movie. This movie, by the way, was not one that I had high hopes for, but I'm sort of glad Jen had a hankering for disgusting popcorn.