Weekend Muvie Revue

The Dictator

Sacha Baron Cohen is a man who has put himself in a box and set that box in a very deep hole. Now he has to dig himself out, or at least poke a few breathin’ holes in there.  The Dictator is his attempt at answering the question “What do you do when people expect you to surprise them?”  And he went about in a very clever way.  Instead of escalating things until you have no choice but to fall, he withdrew.  He dropped the mockumentary schtick and tried to just make a regular movie.  I agree with that move.  It lets you avoid ever making a ‘Lady in the Water.’  But when you drop your shtick and it turns out that’s the only thing you ever had going for you, you end up with a ‘Happening.’  So congratulations, Cohen, you skipped a step but still ended up in the exact same place as Shyamalan.  I suggest we slowly start walling them both in and hope they don’t notice.

Just like Shyamalan, whose face being shit on is apparently on the official seal of Yourpopfilter.com, this is the point where a reasonable person will start questioning everything else they’ve done.  Most people won’t because the movie is actually being fairly well-received.  The only explanation I can offer is that those people are stupid.  They’ll probably call me stupid, too.  Maybe even a faggot noob camper, if I’m on Xbox.  I guess the great thing about art is that people can have different opinions on it, even if theirs are wrong.  And when they’re done calling me stupid they’ll probably defend themselves by saying I didn’t like it because I’m a prude or didn’t get all the intricate political messages.  Sorry, people.  Just like humans, you don’t get to be a big piece of shit all day and then say it’s because you’re too radical for us normal folk.  Art should challenge you, and it should tackle bigger issues.  I think comedy especially should because if you can make us laugh, it’s easier to swallow learning about how people are murdered over chunks of compressed carbon.

But if you’re going to have a message, be smart about it.  Don’t contradict it in your own fucking movie and make it something smarter than ‘sometimes democracy isn’t as free as we think.’  It shouldn’t be simple enough to be a popsicle stick fact, and you can’t cover up how stupid it is by shoving that popsicle stick up your asshole and screaming “POOPSICLE! POOPSICLE! POOPSICLE!” at me until I wish you were dead.  It’s understandable that Cohen is out his element.  Most of his humor comes from letting us watch a real, unsuspecting person encounter an abrasive character.  He’s decided to drop that, so now when he’s racist or sexist or any of the other terrible things he is, the humor isn’t supposed to come from watching some idiot actually agree with him, it’s supposed to come from the act itself.  The same thing goes for his gross-out material.  It’s like watching a version of Jackass where everything is staged and faked.  All the entertainment comes from there being an element of danger to it, which is now gone.

That isn’t to say something fake and gross can’t be funny.  You just have to actually make it funny.  Do anything at all even remotely original with the gag and I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.  You didn’t though, and now your movie is a shitty excuse for a political message that’s only ever shocking when it wants a safe, comfortable laugh.  Nothing’s truly edgy and nothing’s even close to truly funny.  So you heard it here first.  Sacha Baron Cohen is M Night Shyamalan, except when he’s Adam Sandler.  That sucks.  Borat really is a great movie.  It was literally too funny for its own good, partially because people quoted it to death and partially because the worst thing that can happen to you as an artist is to make your best thing first.  You’re basically being punished for taking a risk and succeeding.  So even though this was easily in the top 5 worst comedies I’ve ever seen, I’ll cut Cohen a break.  Whatever the next thing he does is, I’ll give it a shot.  Maybe he’ll figure something out.  I doubt it though.

Verdict:

* (out of ****)

Am I right or am I right?  Email all opinions, in the form of a yes or no answer, to [email protected] and explain yourself before you cause pain to yourself.  Or, follow me on Twitter @Dan_Tompkins.  You can shout at me there and as a bonus, I will amuse you.