One Minute Reviews by Kenneth Shinozuka

The Dictator

Released: Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Starring: Sacha Baron Cohen (as General Aladeen), Ben Kingsley (as Tamir), Anna Faris (as Zoey), Jason Mantzoukas (as Nadal), Bobby Lee (as Mr. Lao)

Director: Larry Charles

Runtime: 83 minutes (remarkably short)

Rating: R for strong crude and sexual content, brief male nudity (explicit), language and some violent images

 60

     out of 100

          Oh, God-affi

     Posted Wednesday, June 20, 2012

The cry for democracy has been a movement eternal and recent, as dictators such as Hosni Mumbarak and Moammar Gaddafi have fallen to rebellions demanding a government for the people, of the people, and by the people. The tragic deaths that resulted from these tragic rebellions should be mourned, yet certainly not disdained in any satire like "The Dictator." Yet however deplorable in its multitudinous racial slurs and sexual double entendres, this comedy-cum-disgrace provokes uninterrupted laughter and entertainment. Actor Sacha Baron Cohen, the same comedian that brought the vulgar and riotous "Borat" and "Bruno" to audiences, will offend every race and ethnicity imaginable to elicit uncomfortably hilarious humor. One of the few consistent points in a film with a wildly inconsistent tone, the uproariousness of the satire carries "The Dictator" when its virtually nonexistent plot, a haphazard heap of gags slovenly threaded together, cannot. Even if director Larry Charles crosses the line throughout the film, this otherwise farrago of unconvincing acting, slipshod editing, and vapid dialogue would catastrophically plummet beneath any line without the broad, obscene steps he takes innumerable times. Though "The Dictator" belabors its theme championing the fall of dictatorship, audiences will likely hear the cry for democracy far less than the cries of laughter that will ring out in theaters across the globe, oppressed or free. 60/100