What perfect timing for the arrival of the first trailer for The Dictator, Sacha Baron Cohen's return to Borat-style territory as a Middle Eastern autocrat "who risked his life to ensure that democracy would never come to the country he so lovingly oppressed". With the Arab spring nearly a year old, it's impossible for Baron Cohen's new comedy to avoid recalling the more absurd aspects of Muammar Gaddafi's four-decade rule. Our first look at the new film, which once again has Borat and Bruno director Larry Charles behind the camera, drives the point home with a montage opening of world leaders condemning the late Libyan leader.
Gaddafi made his own visit to the US soil, and for Baron Cohen's pop culture reference schtick to work, we know he has to wind up in the good ol' US of A at some point. Naturally the first thing The Dictator does after arriving Stateside is to order up Megan Fox with room service: fair play to the former Transformers star for being a decent sport, but is this a particularly good look for someone whose star seems to have fallen a bit since giving Michael Bay the proverbial two fingers?
Gaddafi aside, the other famous autocrat frequently mentioned in connection with The Dictator is Saddam Hussein, whose (probably ghost-written) book Zabibah and the King is supposedly the basis for the film. Hussein's allegorical novel is about a man named 'Arab who becomes king of medieval Iraq after rescuing a young woman from her rapist husband (who represents the United States). Baron Cohen's film, at this stage, doesn't remotely resemble that. Deliberate misinformation designed to get tongues wagging? We wouldn't put it past him.
Of course, few will care if The Dictator can offer set pieces to compare with Borat's discovery that the kindly old owners of the bed and breakfast where he is staying are Jews or the notorious "Blue Collar Brawlin" incident with which Bruno marks its denouement. The final scene in the trailer for the new film, in which Baron Cohen wins a 100m metre sprint by using a real gun to signal the beginning of the race (giving himself a good head start) and then shoot down any opponents who begin to encroach on his lead, certainly had me LOL-ing into my morning coffee. How about you?
• This piece was amended on 15 December. The original suggested that Gaddafi never visited America. This has been corrected.
