Sacha Baron Cohen has built the majority of his career on intentionally courting controversy, but even by his usual high standards of deliberately causing offense, The Dictator reached new heights.
In fairness, that was about the only outcome considering the Ali G, Borat, and Bruno creator was headlining a blockbuster Hollywood comedy where starred as the ruthless ruler of an oil-rich fictional North African country, and it definitely didn’t disappoint on that front.
The Dictator was banned in Belarus, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan, while 10 minutes were removed from the running time so it could be screened in Uzbekistan, and it was pulled from theaters after two weeks in Kazakhstan, a country where Cohen isn’t held in high regard for obvious reasons.
A censored cut was released in Pakistan, blocked by Malaysia, and specific reference to the “Italian Prime Minster” was excised to prevent an explicit reference to scandal-stricken Silvio Berlusconi, never mind constant accusations of Islamaphobia leveled at the film. In spite of all that, not to mention decidedly lukewarm Rotten Tomatoes scores of 56 and 44 percent from critics and audiences, The Dictator made a huge splash at the box office by netting close to $180 million.
More than a decade later – and with Cohen having returned to the well of provocative material recently through Borat Subsequent Moviefilm – the hot-button hit has staged a coup on Netflix’s worldwide watch-list. Per FlixPatrol, The Dictator has infiltrated the Top 10 in 36 countries globally to rank as the sixth top-viewed movie on the entire platform, no doubt offending a few more new faces along the way.
