The Dictator (2012)
- The incredible score for The Dictator was composed in just a few weeks after the original composer dropped out.
- During the filming of The Dictator, Sacha Baron Cohen improvised one of the most famous lines in the movie.
- The original script for The Dictator was written over a decade before production finally began in 2012.
The Dictator is a 2012 American political satire comedy directed by Larry Charles, starring Sacha Baron Cohen as Admiral General Aladeen, the despotic, narcissistic ruler of the fictional North African country of Wadiya. When Aladeen travels to New York to address the United Nations, he is kidnapped by an assassin hired by his treacherous uncle and stripped of his iconic beard, leaving him unrecognizable and stranded on the streets of Manhattan. Taken in by Zoey, a politically correct organic grocery store manager played by Anna Faris, Aladeen must find a way to reclaim his identity and his country.
Sacha Baron Cohen's performance was a masterclass in offensive comedy played with total conviction โ Aladeen's casual racism, misogyny, anti-Semitism, and murderous authoritarianism were deployed as satirical weapons against both Middle Eastern dictatorships and Western hypocrisy. The Dictator earned $179 million worldwide on a $65 million budget.
