Many fans will be disappointed that Sacha Baron Cohen’s The Dictator is a more or less conventional comedy and not an ambush-interview mockumentary in the style of Borat and Bruno. But that guerrilla-clown shtick would be tough to sustain: Why not let him try something else? The good news is that The Dictator is loose and slap-happy and full of sharp political barbs and has funny actors moving in and out — and at a lickety-split 83 minutes, it doesn’t wear out its welcome.
Baron Cohen plays Haffaz Aladeen, the authoritarian ruler of the fictional African nation of Wadiya, a cross between Gadhafi and Kim Jong Il. This raging egomaniac with his ridiculous fur-ball beard orders his surname to be used in place of such common words as “Yes” and “No,” which means you can’t tell what anyone means when they answer “Aladeen” — and if you complain about that or anything else, he’ll have his guards haul you off to be beheaded.
Aladeen controls a vast oil supply and is building nuclear warheads, which he tells the world will be used for “peaceful purposes” — but has the giggles before getting the words out. He hates Israel. For fun, he watches tapes of the ’72 Munich Olympics massacre.
Baron Cohen loves portraying anti-Semites as imbeciles. The title links the film to Chaplin’s Hitler satire The Great Dictator. But my guess is that there’s also a process at work here that psychiatrists call identifying with the aggressor: You assume the role of people that you fear.
Baron Cohen’s identification with Aladeen is so strong that you end up rooting — yes, rooting — for the dictator, because this idiot is more likable than his chief aide, Tamir, played by a dour Ben Kingsley. Tamir arranges to have Aladeen murdered en route to a U.N. speech and make Wadiya a democracy, not because he gives a hoot about the people, but because it would open up the country to U.S. oil companies and make him insanely wealthy.