The Dictator (2012)

The Dictator (2012)

Co-written, Co-produced and Performed by: Sacha Baron Cohen
Directed by: Larry Charles
Streaming on Amazon Prime Video. 

It's an out and out mad cap comedy. They create a character, like Mr. Bean, where no matter which scenario you put them in, you can find humor. What if this character does that? What if this character does this? Endless possibilities. Humor is always created through a consistent character, who behaves differently from the normal people. Here, the character is a dumb dictator who doesn't have the capacity to understand the depth of things, and his entitlement and therefore the choices he makes out of it, all of this leads to humor. I cracked the hardest for the joke, where he changes certain words to Aladeen and this creates confusion because he changes both 'positive' and 'negative' to Aladeen. Also, the politically incorrect and offensive stuff that he says generates a lot of fun. This is similar to the traits of Michael Scott. We know that he's a weirdo, and we are not with him, nor against him, we just witness the difference and enjoy the fun.

The tone of the film is celebratory, with the upbeat Arabian music, the pacing of the film and more. I was reminded of how I felt when I was watching The Hangover, where the only purpose was to have mindless fun watching it. The film also taps on a desire to have control over things, like how Aladeen initially has control over everything, but suddenly loses it once and learns some lessons. Usually comic characters don't change no matter what happens to them, they don't learn from their mistakes. That adds to the humor, that no matter what, they won't change.