Starring: Sasha Baron-Cohen (Borat), Ben Kingsley (Gandhi).
Director: Larry Charles (Borat, Bruno).
Screening: Reading Cinemas Queenstown, 1pm, 3pm, 5pm, 7pm and 9pm.
4 stars (out of 5)
Moving on from the real-world format used in Borat and Bruno (well, he's too famous now), The Dictator has professional actors throughout, including great turns from Ben Kingsley and Anna Faris.
Aladeen lives a life of unimaginable luxury in his oil-rich country of Wadiya, bedding countless famous celebrities (Megan Fox is a great sport), being driven around in gold cars and executing whomever he likes, including his chief nuclear scientist, because his missiles are not "pointy enough".
However, his right-hand man, Tamir (Kingsley), has plans to make Wadiya a democratic society and while Aladeen is in New York City at a United Nations summit, Tamir has him replaced with a goat-hugging imbecile also played by Cohen. Aladeen very quickly loses his power, his beard and then his heart to hippie health food store owner Zoey (Faris).
There are some stand-out moments as Aladeen attempts to get back into power with the help of new friend Nadal, a former Wadiyan bomb maker. A severed head, a helicopter trip over Manhattan and a scene with Aladeen attempting to come up with a fake name in an anti-Aladeen restaurant, are brilliant.
But Cohen is at his best when he is aiming for the satirical jugular and the highest point comes at the end with a brilliant speech to the UN favouring fascism and unintentionally describing America's "democracy".
Go watch. That's an order.
- By Sally Burgess.
