Directed by Larry Charles (Bruno, Borat, Religulous, Curb Your Enthusiasm), The Dictator stars kosher British Jew Sacha Baron Cohen as the leader of a fictional Middle Eastern country who “risks his life to ensure that democracy would never come to the country he so lovingly oppressed.”
It was reportedly based on Zabibah and the King, a romance novel believed to have been written by Saddam Hussein. Now, when a movie stars a guy who acted flamboyantly gay on a hunting trip with real-life, gun-toting rednecks in Alabama, uses as its source material a book written by a delusional dictator who was murdered by his people (with our peoples’ help, of course), and was directed by a guy who’s now spent half his career baiting homophobes and religious types, you expect a certain, ground-breakingly ballsy kind of comedy (YOU BROKE MY GROUND WITH YOUR BALLS!). What you get, according to the trailer is…
…funny accents and jokes about the Kardashians? Haha, it’s true, Armenians are hairy. I hope this is just the one they show middle America to trick them into thinking this is going to be like a Jeff Dunham special.
For a second there, I was thinking, “Why is Ben Kingsley always wearing that hat?” And then I realized I was thinking of Hamid Karzai. The Afghani Ben Kingsley.