Charlie Chaplin parodied one of the preeminent douchenozzles of his day with The Great Dictator, so why can't Sacha Baron Cohen do Muammar Gaddafi? Cohen is no Chaplin tho (as brilliant as he may sometimes be) and this movie is no The Great Dictator; that it's just called The Dictator is fitting. 

Unlike his mockumentary comedies built around a single character such as Borat or Brüno, The Dictator is a scripted comedy featuring professional actors, and not just Cohen in character interacting with oblivious bystanders. But there's a certain chemistry Cohen has when he is in disguise and interacting with strangers, and his comedy seems to thrive on that. The Dictator by comparison contains none of that magic, save for an all-too-brief scene with him and John C. Reilly.

In some ways Cohen is like a magician, working best in environments where he's flying under the radar and taking people by surprise. Like a magician he's a master of small details, and some of the biggest laughs in this film come from small jokes you could easily miss if you blinked. Meanwhile so many of the big gags involving big sets, big budgets, and big usage of CGI fall completely flat. And unfortunately there's not much of a story here to fall back on either.

I did laugh during The Dictator, but not as much as I (or the movie) would've liked. It's an okay one-time watch, but for bigger laughs I'm going to have to stick with that lovable little tramp with the adorable mustache...namely Borat.