The Dictator is a bit of a departure for Sacha Baron Cohen. In previous movies in which he’s played the lead (Ali G, Borat, Bruno), Baron Cohen has interacted with members of the public who were completely unaware that he was playing a character. He still plays a larger-than-life character here, but this time, the film he inhabits is completely fictional. Does this change in comedic style work as well as his previous efforts? Read on to find out.

Sacha Baron Cohen stars as Admiral General Aladeen, the supreme leader of the fictional Republic of Wadiya. Ben Kingsley plays an advisor who was passed over for leadership some years prior, and he puts a plot in motion to get Aladeen out of the way. (Of course he does. He’s Ben Kingsley. See: Persia, Prince of.) See, there’s oil in Wadiya that Aladeen refuses to sell to outside nations, but Kingsley’s character is wheeling and dealing behind the scenes and stands to make billions in commission if he can start selling it to other countries. During a trip to New York City, Aladeen is supposed to speak in front of the United Nations, but he’s replaced with a body double and left for dead outside the city, setting up the major conflict of the film: can the real Aladeen, now unrecognizable without his iconic beard, make it to the UN in time to stop a new Wadiyan constitution from being signed?

With all of that out of the way, let’s return to the question posed at the beginning of this review. Does a completely fictional narrative work as well as Baron Cohen’s previous efforts? Not quite. In satire, which The Dictator most certainly is, I’ve always found interactions with real people over the course of a film to paint a broader picture of the general population’s consensus, therefore turning the looking glass back on ourselves and allowing us to examine our culture’s ignorance, apathy, prejudices, or whatever the issue may be. It may not be completely representative of the entire nation’s opinions, but at least there are real people that you can point to as concrete examples and say, “look, these people actually believe what they’re saying.”

In a fictional narrative, that element is gone in favor of actors speaking pre-written dialogue, and there’s just something about that method that takes the bite off the criticisms Baron Cohen tries to make. At the end of The Dictator, Admiral General Aladeen gives a long speech which, in so many words, condemns the leadership of the United States as a type of dictatorship. It works, and it’s even sadly funny, but I think watching real people’s behavior is a much more subtle way to critique society’s impulses rather than going with a pre-planned speech.

Putting its stylistic choices aside, I think The Dictator has a few great moments of comedic brilliance in it. With Borat, I was put off by the cultural phenomenon it became in the weeks and months after its release, but returning to that movie years later, I found it hilarious. I’m guessing something similar will happen here, but in the meantime, Baron Cohen knows his audience and knows how to play up his strengths. His blustery buffoon character is at his best when he’s completely out of his element, and Baron Cohen knows how to walk the line between gross-out humor (which there is a bit of here, but not as much as previous films) and one-liners. He’s also got a solid supporting cast this time around, including John C. Reilly as a racist American officer, UCB co-founder Ian Roberts as a police officer, Anna Faris as the Brooklyn-based hippie love interest, and even Megan Fox playing herself in a cameo appearance.

But this movie is really a coming out party for Jason Mantzoukas, who you may recognize as Rafi from the FX series “The League” or from a bit part on “Parks and Recreation.” He plays Wadiya’s former head of nuclear science who now lives in New York City’s Little Wadiya, and he helps Aladeen with his plan to reclaim his position as supreme leader. Mantzoukas’ comic timing is spot-on, and he is responsible for some of the film’s funniest moments. He essentially plays the straight man to Aladeen’s wild man, and watching him get flustered at Baron Cohen’s stupidity was a personal highlight of this movie. There’s a great series of gags that play out in Little Wadiya that I won’t ruin, but they all involve flashbacks of Aladeen having members of his country assassinated. You’ll know it when you see it.

Is The Dictator Sacha Baron Cohen’s best film? It’s tough to say, especially with comedies. Though the lack of unsuspecting real people might not be as funny as the alternative, perhaps this is a step in the right direction for the auteur. It shows that he’s willing to step outside of his comfort zone a little, and I think watching him grow as a comedian may be more important than watching him play the same games in his self-constructed sandbox over and over again. Until next time…

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While Sacha Baron Cohen made his name with the mockumentaries Borat and Bruno, he’s been taking solid acting gigs in ‘real’ films over recent years such as Sweeney Todd and most recently Hugo. He’s also set to appear in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained and will play the villain in Tom Hooper’s Les Miserables, but not before he unleashes another wacky character onto the world with The Dictator.

Paramount has today released the first trailer for the film via Moviefone, and this time Cohen in joined by Anna Faris, Sir Ben Kingsley, Megan Fox, John C. Reilly and J.B. Smoove.

In the film Sacha Baron Cohen plays a ruthless dictator who heads to the U.S. for a meeting at the United Nations and finds that his number two has replaced him with an unsuspecting sheepherder lookalike. As the dictator wanders the city, he meets the owner of an organic food store. She turns around his dictatorial thinking, and there’s a little romance in it as well.

Cohen has re-teamed with Borat and Bruno director Larry Charles, and The Dictator will be released May 11, 2012.

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Decent performances from fantastic actors isn’t enough to save Carnage, the latest film from director Roman Polanski. If your idea of time well spent is watching people argue, yell, and scream at each other for two hours, then you’ve hit the jackpot with this one.

Polanski’s sketchy history is enough to have some critics refuse to review his films altogether, and while I’m certainly not endorsing his actions, I don’t have a moral problem with watching one of the guy’s films. Taking his off-set behavior out of the equation and examining Carnage by itself, it didn’t seem like there was much to it from a directing standpoint. The story is based on a French stage play called God of Carnage, so naturally it’s going to be confined to a limited number of locations. This isn’t to say that there’s no room for stylistic flourishes in close quarters – if Michael Bay made this movie, it would look a lot different than Polanski’s – but because Polanski chose to film everything in a straightforward way, the movie felt a little flat. Everything’s just kind of…there.

The film opens on a shot of kids playing in a park in New York City, and after the credits roll, one kid hits another in the face with a stick. The movie then transitions to the home of the parents of the victim (Foster and Reilly). They’ve invited the parents of the attacker (Winslet and Waltz) over to talk it out and shed light on the situation. Things heat up when blame starts getting thrown around – turns out the attacker is in a gang, unbeknownst to his parents – and these apparently civil adults abandon their pretensions, plummeting off the deep end into name-calling and drunkenness.

Jodie Foster’s character was by far the most annoying, a haughty writer working on a book about Darfur. She whines and cries throughout, trying the patience even of her on-screen husband, John C. Reilly. He’s the best part of this movie, and the only thing that made it remotely tolerable for me; when he gets some alcohol in him, his inhibitions fall away and he starts telling it like it is, providing the funniest lines in the film by far. Waltz’s character is a lawyer who spends at least half of his screen time on his cell phone, locked in uninteresting conversations with one of his pharmaceutical clients about covering up a scandal. Kate Winslet’s character isn’t much better, a snooty holier-than-thou type who, in one of the film’s rare instances of something interesting happening, projectile vomits on a coffee table. I realize that’s not a character trait, but it’s the most important thing she does in the film, which tells you a bit about the dynamics of the conversations here.

Carnage is yet another statement on society seen through the eyes of a small group of people in one location. Over the past few years, I’ve drastically lost patience with these kinds of films; most of them are less like Sidney Lumet’s excellent 12 Angry Men and more like Frank Darabont’s dismal The Mist, which is to say that recent variations on this formula have tended to get overly heavy-handed. Because the characters in Carnage are educated and pseudo-intellectual, I think their devolution into chaos is more of a condemnation of humanity than the one depicted in The Mist - at least the characters in the latter film are depicted as idiots from the start.

Because this movie is such a grinding buildup of constant unpleasantness, I was yearning for its end far earlier than it arrived. But when the ending finally does happen, it’s so abrupt – seemingly in the middle of a random string of arguments, much like any other here – that it has absolutely no impact, other than providing the freedom for which I so desperately longed. Carnage will work for some people, but trudging through the annoying characters and grating dialogue just wasn’t worth the takeaway for me. Though it’s nowhere near as abysmal as Just Go With It or Burning Palms, Carnage is a film I’ll never watch again. Until next time…

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Sony Picture Classics have released a new trailer for Roman Polanski’s Carnage, an adaptation of the stage play God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza. The film follows two sets of parents (Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz and Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly) who meet up to talk after their children have been in a fight that day at school.

Watch below:

A showdown between two kids: about eleven, in a local playground. Swollen lips, broken teeth…Now the parents of the “victim” have invited the parents of the “bully” to their apartment to sort if out. Cordial banter gradually develops a razor-sharp edge as all four parents reveal their laughable contradictions and grotesque prejudices. None of them will escape the ensuing carnage.

Carnage has a US release date set for December 16th, 2011. It premiered at the 68th Venice International Film Festival last month and currently has 94% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 16 reviews.

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Today sees the release of the first trailer for Roman Polanski’s Carnage, an adaptation of the stage play God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza. The film appears to solely take place within the confines of one house, but that doesn’t matter at all when you have Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly, Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz being hilarious. Yes, it’s a comedy.

Watch below:

A showdown between two kids: about eleven, in a local playground. Swollen lips, broken teeth…Now the parents of the “victim” have invited the parents of the “bully” to their apartment to sort if out. Cordial banter gradually develops a razor-sharp edge as all four parents reveal their laughable contradictions and grotesque prejudices. None of them will escape the ensuing carnage.

Carnage has a US release date set for December 16th, 2011. Potential Oscar-bait?

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We got our first look at Sacha Baron Cohen in his next Bruno/Borat-style movie The Dictator two weeks ago, and now THR has word that both Megan Fox and John C. Reilly will be joining the cast. No further details on their roles were given, but they are said to be making cameo appearances so it’s probably best we stay in the dark.

In the film Sacha Baron Cohen plays a ruthless dictator who heads to the U.S. for a meeting at the United Nations and finds that his number two has replaced him with an unsuspecting sheepherder lookalike. As the dictator wanders the city, he meets the owner of an organic food store. She turns around his dictatorial thinking, and there’s a little romance in it as well.

Cohen has re-teamed with Borat and Bruno director Larry Charles, and will also be joined on-screen by Sir Ben Kingsley, Jason Mantzoukas, and Anna Faris.

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At the beginning of the week Elizabeth Banks (The Next Three Days) joined the cast of The Hunger Games as Effie Trinket. This casting was followed by a daily bombardment of fairly unknown young actors being cast in supporting roles, but now an actor we are familiar with is circling the movie.

According to Vulture John C. Reilly (Step Brothers) will “soon be getting the offer to play Haymitch Abernathy” in the film. Abernathy is the only living person from District 12 to ever win The Hunger Games, and now serves as a mentor to district tributes Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson). The site mentions Reilly was also in talks for a role in Sam Raimi’s Oz, The Great and Powerful as James Franco’s side-kick, but a larger role in The Hunger Games (with the potential for sequels) seemed more attractive to the actor.

In related news Lionsgate has cast Paula Malcomson (Sons of Anarchy), who will play the mother of Jennifer Lawrence (Katniss) and Willow Shields (Primrose).

The Hunger Games is set in a future America which is divided into 12 poor districts that serve a wealthy Capitol territory. Once a year, each district submits a girl and boy as tributes to participate in life-or-death games.

Gary Ross (Seabiscuit, Pleasantville) is directing, and Lionsgate have set a March 23, 2012 release date, with production beginning this month.

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What am I doing with a whole day off from work? WATCHING TRAILERS of course! And if you’re any type of super-nerd like me, you’re wondering what yays or nays might be making their debut at Sundance in a month.

Fox Searchlight has just released the new trailer for Miguel Arteta’s (The Good Girl, Youth in Revolt, and Chuck and Buck) Cedar Rapids, starring The Office’s Ed Helms in his first leading role. According to Obsessed With Film, out of several roles offered to Helms post The Hangover, this is the one he’s chosen as his shot at the big time.

You can view the trailer below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJqFUWbITug

Here’s the official synopsis from Fox:

To call insurance agent Tim Lipper (Ed Helms), “naive” is a gross understatement. He’s never left his small hometown.  He’s never stayed at a hotel. And he’s never experienced anything like Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Sent to represent his company at the annual insurance convention, Tim is distracted by three convention veterans (John C. Reilly, Anne Heche and Isiah Whitlock Jr.) who will show him the ropes and push his boundaries. For a guy who plays everything by the book, this convention will be anything but conventional. 

Arteta’s last few movies were just okay for me, but his intimate and disturbingly sincere Chuck and Buck will always hold a special place in my heart. Going by the trailer, his new film looks a little formulaic in my opinion–but we’ll see.

Cedar Rapids hits theatres February 11th, 2011.

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A second trailer for Shane Acker’s 9 has scurried online and it is a lot like the first one, however that is not a bad thing as the first trailer was great. This new trailer gives us a bit more information as to why little sacks with number on them are running around, and we get to see a bunch of new footage. It’s quite refreshing to see an animated film that is a bit darker and isn’t aimed at children. It’s aimed that the big children instead.

9 will be released in September and features the vocal cords of Elijah Wood, Christopher Plummer, Martin Landau, John C. Reilly, Crispin Glover and Jennifer Connelly.

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