Ali G Cohen

In almost reverse order, I finally caught Sasha Baron Cohen’s first movie, Ali G Indahouse.   He plays a “rapper” from Staines (small town outside London) who somehow manages to get elected to the House of Commons.  One of his “homies” (fellow rappers), Ricky C, is played by Martin Freeman (aka Bilbo Baggins from the newest “Hobbit” movie); David Carlton, the cynical MP who leads him into Parliament is played by Charles Dance (aka Tywin Lannister from “Game of Thrones”), and finally Rhona Mitra, the sultry lawyer from early seasons of “Boston Legal”, is here as Carlton’s seductive assistant. Borat has a small role in the film.

            Ali G himself is somewhat amusing – although Staines is as far away geographically as it can be from L.A., he still acts like rapper and has a feud with the East Side (of Staines) rappers.  Noticeably absent from the film, though, are his trademark “interviews” with unwitting subjects.  From what I understand, some of the subjects are “in on” the joke and just go along with it, others are genuinely clueless.  Anti-semites are a favorite target.

Borat.  For those of us like myself who’ve never watched his Ali G show, here was an opportunity to see the “embarrassing interview” shtick in action.  SBC plays a horrendously obtuse Kazakh TV reporter who travels to America in a misguided quest to win the heart of Pamela Anderson, the buxom star of “Baywatch”.  He’s accompanied by a large, hairy, bear-like manager, Azamat.  Along the way he conducts his usual interviews, typically expressing outrageously racist and anti-Semitic statements in the hopes of luring his subjects into agreeing with him and adding their own idiocy to the mix.  In Bob Barr’s case, he simply tricked the 2008 Libertarian candidate into eating cheese made from human breast milk. 

Bruno.  SBC abandoned Borat, who had gotten too well known, and veered off into even stranger weirdness with “Bruno”, a flamboyantly gay character whose goal was to become the “most famous Austrian since Hitler” (aside from Arnold, of course).  Naturally, this persona offends and annoys a lot of people.  He gets a focus group to review his pilot TV show (much of which involves him flagging his penis around) and of course they’re not impressed or amused. 

            One group member remarks that “the only way that guy is going to be famous is by making a celebrity sex tape”, prompting Bruno to attempt – unsuccessfully – to seduce Ron Paul (Libertarian candidate from 1988 – what is with SBC and Libertarians??) in a hotel room.  As petulant as always, Paul stomped out of the room, leaving Bruno with his scented candles and music in the darkness.

            In another scene, Bruno winds up in a house full of swingers in the middle of an orgy, although he himself does not participate.  Although the offending couples are pixilated out, what they are doing is still quite obvious to anyone with an imagination.

The Dictator.  Finally SBC returns to straight (!) humor and hits it out of the ballpark.  He plays Admiral General Aladeen, the dictator of the fictional country Wadiya (obviously based on Qaddafi).  His own general, played by Ben Kingsley, manages to depose him with a double during a visit to the UN in NYC.  Suddenly beardless Aladeen has to get help from a lesbian vegetarian who he met protesting his regime outside the UN.  What I like is that this humor is not from interviews, instead it’s ridicule of Third World dictators.  My favorite part was him stumbling into the “Kill Aladeen Restaurant” in “Little Wadiya”, NYC, and running into all the dissidents he thought he’d had executed (who in fact were simply exiled by his general). 

Cohen is not always the main star of the show; he’s had a fair amount of substantial supporting roles in movies (briefly): 

Hugo: he plays the stationmaster in Paris, a quasi-nemesis to the main character, a young boy named Hugo;

Talladega Nights: a gay NASCAR driver who knocks Ricky Bobby (Will Ferrell) off the top of the racing standings;

Madagascar: the voice of King Julian, yet another flamboyant animal

Sweeney Todd: a competing barber who becomes Todd’s first victim.

I found most of these minor roles more fun to watch than “Borat” or “Bruno”, so it depends on your tolerance for his type of humor – which is undeniably clever even if can be somewhat annoying.  Enjoy.