The Dictator

Nothing is sacred in The Dictator, which isn’t surprising in the latest effort from big-screen provocateur Sacha Baron Cohen.

However, the creator of Borat (2006) and Bruno (2009) isn’t just bordering on bad taste with what amounts to his slickest and most straightforward narrative film to date. He also manages to be quite funny.

Following on the heels of his other films, it’s a hit-and-miss satire that aims to be provocative in spots and just disgusting in others. But as usual, Cohen deserves credit for his audacity. He refuses to compromise and is willing to risk offending large segments of the audience in the meantime.

Cohen’s story of a fictional dictator from a North African country who gleefully oppresses his people for no good reason (the real-life inspirations are a combination of the usual suspects) is a wildly uneven mix of low-brow slapstick and witty satire — check out the helicopter sequence — that might have moviegoers simultaneously laughing and shaking their collective heads.

Cohen plays General Aladeen, the notoriously ruthless leader of the nation of Wadiya, who ventures to New York at the request of the United Nations to avoid sanctions for his country’s nuclear-weapons program.

While there, he endures a series of mishaps involving his second-in-command (Ben Kingsley) and winds up losing his identity. He is befriended by Zoey (Anna Faris), a manager of an organic food store who mistakes Aladeen for an oppressed Wadiyan refugee wanting to join the fight against his regime. What the dictator really wants, of course, is to regain power without blowing his cover.

Cohen, who is working again with director Larry Charles, seems to have created a character in search of a story. Aladeen’s character arc contains familiar fish-out-of-water wackiness combined with more subdued elements of redemption.

But behind that narrative predictability are some scattered moments of hilarity, albeit more from throwaway one-liners and shocking sight gags than from the story itself.

At its core, The Dictator is a left-wing lampoon of international politics that takes plenty of veiled shots at American foreign policy. That’s certain to keep many folks from seeing it in the first place, but it would be their loss.

While it doesn’t have the consistent laughs and the envelope-pushing freshness of Borat, there are enough moments of edgy inspiration here to meet the expectations of Cohen’s followers.

Rated R, 83 minutes.