The Dictator (The Extended Cut)   Starring: Sacha Baron Cohen, Anna Faris Ben Kingsley, Jason Mantzoukas and John C. Reilly Paramount Home Entertainment RRP: £15.99 PHE1646 Certificate: 15 Available 24 September 2012

The tale of an inept despot’s first trip to America, The Dictator stars Sacha Baron Cohen as the leader of Wadiya who is stripped of power and suddenly forced to live his ultimate nightmare... the American dream...

I was expecting The Dictator to be a terrible mess of a movie. It sounds like the sort of awful film Adam Sandler has been forced to make in recent years (remember the embarrassing mess that was You Don't Mess with the Zohan?) and in many respects this teeters on the age of falling into the abyss of awful political slapstick comedy... however there's enough good jokes to ensure that not only will the knuckle scrapping brigade find this funny (for all the wrong reasons) but also the more refined members of society will chuckle at its occasional attempt at political satire.

Sacha Baron Cohen stars as Admiral General Aladeen, the dictator of the Republic of Wadiya. He's forced to attend a UN meeting in America before military action is taken against him. However, on his arrival in America, he is abducted, tortured and has his trademark beard shaved off against his will. A replacement decoy Aladeen is brought in to fool the public into thinking nothing is wrong - this puppet will be used to decree that Aladeen's days as a dictator are long over. The main reason behind this scam is so that Aladeen's uncle can sell the country's oil rights to various large fossil fuel companies.

The rest of the movie sees Aladeen having to fit into American society by getting a job and learning to not be such a tyrant, but that's not so easy after years of getting his own way. There's a love interest in the form of Zoey (Anna Faris), a feminist activist who dreams of a better world.

Also worthy of note are interesting cameo appearances by Megan Fox, John C. Reilly and Garry Shandling.

Extras include two versions of the movie: Theatrical (1 hour, 19 min, 54 sec) or Extended (1 hour, 34 min, 38 sec); Deleted and Extended Scenes (11 min, 56 sec) and Larry King Interview (2 min, 44 sec interview which looks like it was cut from the finished movie).

While far from being a must buy DVD, there's enough quality gags to make it at least worthy of your time. It's probably not a film you'll want to watch more than once, but it's mindless fun.

7

Nick Smithson