The Dictator is make-believe from start to finish. In terms of comedy, that distinction seems lost on Baron Cohen, who is also co-writer, and Larry Charles, his regular director. Aladeen’s outrageously insensitive statements have no deeper resonance in this environment. Laughing at a fictional racist such as Aladeen is close to bigotry itself. Laughing at the actual bigots in Borat and Bruno is satire.
Even within its fictional format, however, The Dictator could have worked. In fact, a climactic scene, in which Aladeen describes the perfect dictatorship using examples drawn directly from life in contemporary America, serves as a guideline for a potential script. Each example he cites – “You could use the media to scare the people into supporting policies that are against their interests” – is ripe material for its own segment, resulting in a satire exploring the ways democracy is compromised in today’s United States...
Read the fuller review at Larsen On Film.
