I feel compelled to preface this by saying that I’m a huge Sacha Cohen fan, from his pre-HBO Ali G Show days all the way through Bruno. Even when I’m not laughing I’m mesmerized by his balls (wait, that came out wrong) and consistently impressed with his ability to stage a sociological experiment. The Dictator, however, is a departure from his last few documentary-style movies, in that the people reacting to him are actors, which robs Cohen of his biggest strength, his ability play off people who aren’t in on the joke. (If you’ve seen Ali G Indahouse, you know what exactly what I’m talking about). Paramount just released the opening scene from The Dictator online, and from the sounds of it, it seems less funny than real-time Cohen riffing at the CinemaCon presentation a few days ago:
By way of introduction, Baron Cohen claimed to have starred in movies such as “When Harry Kidnapped Sally, The 14 Year Old Virgin, and The Planet Of The Rapes“. As he told the industry audience, “My film will be released on May 16. As for your families, we’ll see.”
HAHA! A baby with a beard, get it?? What’s next, a camel joke? It seems like they started off with a really funny premise and then realized 20 minutes in that there just wasn’t that much material there. But then that sort of describes my entire life, so what do I know.
Opens May 16th.