Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
The heroic story of a dictator who risks his life to ensure that democracy would never come to the country he so lovingly oppressed.
Sacha Baron Cohen's third feature film follows a relatively predictable fish-out-of-water structure compared to his mockumentary work. The satire of Middle Eastern dictatorships and Western hypocrisy has sharp moments but the narrative arc is formulaic. Cohen's committed physical performance elevates material that often relies on shock humor over genuine wit. Visually functional but unremarkable. The ending speech is memorably pointed satire of American democracy but the romantic resolution is clichéd. Less distinctive than Borat or Bruno due to the scripted format removing the anarchic unpredictability that made those films special.