By Jason Apuzzo. The first official image has come out from Paramount of Sacha Baron Cohen as a Saddam Hussein-style despot in Cohen’s forthcoming comedy, The Dictator. The official, cheeky description of this project is that it tells “the heroic story of a dictator who risked his life to ensure that democracy would never come to the country he so lovingly oppressed. It is inspired by the best selling novel, Zabibah and The King, by Saddam Hussein.” Perfect!
Cohen is very hit-and-miss to me in terms of his comedy, but he’s obviously quite talented and when he hits he’s almost at Peter Sellers’ level. Anyway, this could really be fabulous if it’s done properly …
Posted on June 9th, 2011 at 1:45pm.
Very uneven in his movies but when he connects, he really connects. The Sellers comparison is apt. Borat is one of the most profanely funny movies I’ve ever seen. Bruno was uneven but had it’s moments that no other actor would be brave enough to do on film. I’ll definitely check this one out.
Agreed. The question is: will the film be so vulgar that he drives away half his audience? He’s got to reign himself in a little, I think, if he really wants to connect on a big scale. The title of his film is a direct reference to Chaplin’s famous comedy about Hitler, but Cohen’s version will never have that kind of reach if he makes it X-rated.