Sacha Baron Cohen plays Admiral General Haffaz Aladeen, the dictator of the fictional Republic of Wadiya, in a 2012 satire that aims at strongmen and mostly hits the furniture. Larry Charles directs. The script is by Baron Cohen, Alec Berg, David Mandel and Jeff Schaffer. The film runs 83 minutes and Paramount released it on May 16, 2012. It took $190 million.
Trailer, via RepublicOfWadiya.
Aladeen, Tamir and the Decoy Shepherd
The setup is the sharpest thing here. Wadiya sits in the Horn of Africa. Aladeen inherits the throne from his father Omar, sponsors terrorism, surrounds himself with female bodyguards, builds nuclear weapons meant for Israel, and renames words in the Wadiyan dictionary after himself. He refuses to sell the oil fields, a promise he made to Omar.
When the United Nations Security Council votes to intervene, Aladeen flies to New York to address it. His uncle Tamir — passed over as successor — has him kidnapped and replaced with Efawadh, a dim shepherd meant to sign away the oil and democratize Wadiya.
The producers said the character drew on real dictators with personality cults: Kim Jong Il, Idi Amin, Muammar Gaddafi, Bokassa I, Mobutu Sese Seko and Saparmurat Niyazov. Wadiya sits in Eritrea, but its own ruler, Isaias Afwerki, was not cited. The opening credits dedicate the film “in loving memory” to Kim Jong Il, who died in 2011.
What the Running Order Actually Delivers
- Aladeen’s escape after his captor burns to death in a failed torture attempt.
- Tamir mistaking the corpse for Aladeen.
- A shaved Aladeen wandering New York as “Allison Burgers.”
- Zoey, the human rights activist, offering him work at her cooperative.
- Nadal, the nuclear chief Aladeen thought he had executed, leading him to Little Wadiya.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| May 16, 2012 | Paramount releases The Dictator |
| 2011 | Kim Jong Il dies; credits dedicate the film to him |
| 2012 | Film grosses $190 million |
Where the Satire Goes Soft
The premise has teeth. A dictator who rewrites his own language and refuses to sell oil is a real target, and the decoy plot is a genuine joke about how easily a country can be signed away. Ben Kingsley, Anna Faris and Jason Mantzoukas fill the cast around Baron Cohen.
But the film keeps reaching for the crude gag over the political one. The cult-of-personality material is the part worth keeping. The rest is noise.
The Dictator is a comedy that knows its villain and not much else. 5.8 of 10.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.
