Starring – Sacha Baron
Cohen, Anna Faris,Ben Kingsley,Jason Mantzoukas,
Directed by –
Larry Charles
Music By – Erran Baron
Cohen.
Budget - $65
Million.
Released on – 16th
May 2012
Tagline - The heroic story
of a dictator who risks his life to ensure that democracy would never
come to the country he so lovingly oppressed.
The Dictator is
the 4th movie of British Actor Sacha Baron Cohen who has once again
never ceased to tickle our funny bone. I would definitely rate the movie
between ‘Borat’ and slightly above ‘Bruno’. In this movie Sacha takes
on the dictators as he plays the role of Admiral Hafaz Aladeen. ‘Admiral
Aladeen’ is the dictator of the Uranium rich North African Nation of
Wadiya. The movie has a promising start which talks about the dictator’s
childhood. The movie starts with the news reader giving insight about the
mounting tensions in Wadiya. Admiral had changed over 300 Wadiyan words to Aladeen
including words such as ‘positive’
and ‘negative’. A doctor informs one
of his patients that he was HIV Aladeen owing to which he gives mixed emotions
of happiness and sorrow as he is confused. It also shows the birth of Baby
Aladeen with his trademark beard and pubic hair. The Supreme Leader ‘Aladeen’
also organized his own Olympic games and claimed to have won 14 gold medals.
The movie is promising enough to make you laugh, thanks to DAN the MAN Sacha Baron Cohen aka ‘The Dictator’.
The accent with which he speaks is amusing and his looks and behaviour resemble
Late Mohd Gaddafi of Libya especially
the female bodyguards. The film starts with a special dedication to North
Korean dictator Late ‘Kim Jong II’.
The Supreme
leader delivers a speech while addressing the Wadiyan people and boasts about
the uranium rich country and informs them about using those resources only for
clean purposes like for medical and
research and giggles. The world nations are worried about the dictator and they want him to
address the United Nations. He expresses his desire to make his country a
Nuclear power nation and comes hunting for his nuclear scientist ‘Nadal’. He
argues about the shape of the missile with the nuclear scientist and wants the
missile to be pointy. The dialogues are too hilarious especially between the
scientist and the Admiral where the admiral claims to have seen a research
which the scientist objects it to be a cartoon. The dictator wants him to be
executed as the scientist disagrees with him. Ben Kingsley plays a crucial role
in this film as ‘Tamir’ who is the dictator’s uncle and aide. The dictator is
concerned about his life and has too many body doubles so that if someone tries
to assassinate him the body double is killed. Tamir eyes the Uranium and wants
to sell all those to his friends who are the head of other Asian and Middle
Eastern countries. Tamir makes a plan and sets a trap for the admiral.
Unfortunately the dictator falls prey to it. He uses the admirals body double
who is mentally challenged (Efwadth) to
address the UN.The security person shaves the ‘original’ admiral’s trademark
beards. Helplessly he watches him and feels sad at his own plight. On the D-day,
the admiral is supposed to address the UN and sign an agreement stating that
Wadiya would soon turn into a Democratic country.
The ‘original’ Admiral waits
outside the Lancaster Building watching all the funny and weird actions by the ‘body
double’ admiral.The body double aka Efwadth urinates on a jar and pours over the Israeli delegates as he is mentally retarded. The 'Original' Dictator yells ‘He is not
the legitimate leader’ at Efwadth and the entire mob chant the same slogan. The
‘original’ dictator without beard objects the body double’s speech and doesn’t
want democracy in Wadiya. He runs towards the building where he is beaten.
During this event he encounters woman activist Zoey (Anna Farris) who offers
him a job in her store. The dictator introduces himself as ‘Alison Burger’ to
Zoey. He initially refuses the offer and moves on to NY’s ‘Little Wadiya’ which
is populated by the Wadiyan refugees. There he encounters his nuclear scientist
‘Nuclear Nadal’ who works as Mac expert in an Apple store. Nadal explains that
Wadiyan rebels infiltrated his intelligence unit, sending into exile all the
people he had ordered to be killed. Nadal and Aladeen plan to destroy Tamir’s plot
where the Nadal urges the dictator to make him as the head of the Wadiyan
Nuclear Program. Aladeen(Alison) accepts Zoey’s offer as she is catering at the
Lancaster Hotel where signing was supposed to take place. Both Nadal and Aladeen
make a plan and unfortunately their plan fails to materialize. Aladeen (Alison)
helps Zoey in improving her struggling business with his strict rules on
employees and schedules.With the help of a beard taken from a corpse ,Aladeen
infiltrates into the hotel where ‘Efwadth’,his body double lived.He
incapacitates him and enters the signing ceremony.He tears of Tamirs document
to form a democratic government and gives a
speech praising the virtues of dictatorship and urges USA to move to
dictatorship.His heart melts when he observes Zoey in the hotel and expresses
his love to her. The dialogues which he uses to explain democracy are unusual
and it is too good.He vows to democratize his nation and open oil fields for
business but in a way where people will
benefit.He also promises to hold fair elections in his country.
A year later,
Wadiya holds its first democratic elections, although Aladeen wins it by a huge
margin. Afterwards, he marries Zoey, but is shocked when she crushes a glass and reveals herself to be Jewish. The end scenes however
shows Aladeen's convoy with eco-friendly cars instead of the previous gold one , visiting a reinstated Nadal, and
later Zoey revealing in a television interview that she is pregnant with the
couple's first child. Aladeen responds to the news by asking if Zoey is having
a "boy or an abortion". The movie itself is a laughter riot and I am
sure you will like it. In the ‘Death to
Aladeen’ restaurant at Little Wadiya
, Admiral meets his country men whom he
ordered to be executed. I completely loved this entire scene where he
converses with a guy revealing his name. The guy asks for his name and he comes
up with names such as ‘Alison Burger’, ‘Ladis Washe Rum’,’Emp lye must wash
hands’ and ‘Max imum occu pancy 120’ etc. Check out this scene on the LINK
The films will make you laugh like
anything. Ana Faris has done a commendable job but the dictator takes away all
the charm.I believe that Ben Kingsley should have been given more role but sadly its not the case. Larry Charles ,the director
of the movie has proved himself once again.
The child birth scene might look
offensive to many of you.The helicopter scene is equally hilarious. Megan Fox
does a cameo for the film.The following scene is funny where the admiral sticks
his picture with Megan on the wall along with other celebrities where he is
found semi naked with Hally Berry,Hillary Swan,Arnold Schwarzenegger etc. Some might feel this movie as offensive and some might think it as racist.
Dialogues.
1.Aladeen-
Megan, you were worth every
penny. I trust everything is in there as your manager requested?
Megan Fox- What’s this, a ruby? Is that a joke? What am I, a Kardashian?
Aladeen- No, of course not. You’re much less hairy.
Megan Fox- What’s this, a ruby? Is that a joke? What am I, a Kardashian?
Aladeen- No, of course not. You’re much less hairy.
2.Hotel Manager- …I am here for your protection, but I have to say, I
hate Arabs.
Aladeen- I’m not an Arab.
Hotel Manager-You’re all Arabs to me: The blacks, the Jews…those blue, tree-hugging queers in Avatar…
Hotel Manager-You’re all Arabs to me: The blacks, the Jews…those blue, tree-hugging queers in Avatar…
3.Zoey – Alison, could you please take your hands off my breast.
Aladeen (Alison) – Breasts??. I thought
you were a boy.
4.Aladeen(Alison) - We love it when women go to school.Its like
seeing a monkey on a roller skate .It means nothing to them but so adorable to
us.
5.Aladeen
- I am executing myself.I am nice.I am like mushroom,hard and fake from
outside but soft and mushy from inside.
Nadal - you are not like mushroom but like Onion but a '*******' and within it there are 10 layers of '*****'
I enjoyed the movie although I was expecting more as I am a very big fan of Sacha. I am not disappointed but I felt that it could be better. I give 2.5 stars out of 5.
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I did not have a chance to see the movie--so thanks for giving me a low-down on it. One word replacing many--it is funny but also so profound isn't it? We all can't be same--we need to be diverse to make life:)
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