JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Admiral General Aladeen of Wadiyah arrives in New York to address the United Nations.

Sacha Baron Cohen’s The Dictator is crass, lewd, racist, insensitive, misogynist, rude, immature and offensive. However it is intentionally crass, lewd, racist, insensitive, misogynist, rude, immature and offensive, which is more than we can say for many well-meaning productions designed to assure the audience that they are respectable. Too much good taste atrophies the mind; there is space for bad taste in the cinema, and Baron Cohen does his part to fill it.

Critics argue that by spoofing dictators, particularly Middle Eastern despots, the filmmakers are making light of a real and very serious situation. We think one reason dictators thrive is because everyone is afraid of them—they are treated as sacred monsters. Don’t say anything, they might bite! Well someone needs to laugh at the bastards and show them how ridiculous they really are, and if enough people laugh they might finally get it.

The Dictator is so grotesquely funny we nearly put someone’s eye out when food shot out of our nose. And Aladeen’s big speech towards the end: hysterical because true.

Incidentally, he mentions Filipinos. Does anyone want to get offended?

We would screen this in a double-bill with our favorite Adam Sandler movie, You Don’t Mess With the Zohan.