From the opening dedication, “In loving memory to King Jong-Il”, it’s clear Sacha Baron Cohen’s feature film The Dictator isn’t pulling its punchlines. The story of General Aladeen (Baron Cohen), the war-hungry, tyrannical ruler of African rogue state Wadiya, who finds himself abandoned in New York, The Dictator is the cinematic equivalent of a Frankie Boyle stand-up show; the jokes are so unapologetically outrageous that they inspire the type of helpless laughter that only comes after an initial shocked gasp.
And it is consistently, wickedly funny. From in-jokes like casting Gandhi’s Ben Kingsley as Aladeen’s corrupt right-hand man, to Aladeen’s Wii game where the terrorist character must choose his challenge - London Underground or Munich Olympics? – it’s relentlessly immature, quite likely very offensive to some, and undeniably hilarious to many.
But though as a comedy the punchlines hit hard, as a satire the political punches do not. From Ali G to the infamous baby audition sequence in Bruno, Baron Cohen’s genius lies in his ability to eke out the absurd, prejudiced, cruel or just plain idiotic reactions of real, unwitting subjects. The feature format forces a definite Hollywood feel onto The Dictator, and some broader, gross-out jokes – like using a pregnant woman’s cervix as a major set-piece – feel disappointingly cheap compared to the biting satire he’s capable of. Even a speech that outlines America’s similarities to a dictatorship feels less political, more pastiche, far closer to Hugh Grant in Love, Actually than Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator.
In fact, the most telling moment of The Dictator came from the audience. When Anna Faris’s eco-feminist reveals her proudly unshaven armpits to Aladeen, his disgusted response was drowned out by the deafening chorus of “Ugh!” that echoed around the packed Savoy cinema. We may think we’re laughing at this terrifyingly backwards, conservative terrorist – but often, we’re actually laughing with him. If only Baron Cohen had caught that on film.