Ali G: Who Iz I?

I was never into the "Ali G" character before but I have to say that I think Sacha Baron Cohen has pulled off something quite clever with this latest outing. This time, his odious character has discovered an offer on his fax machine from HBO to recommisison his long-cancelled television series. That's lucky because now he is reduced to pawning his faux jewellery and that isn't just a big lunch growing in the tummy of girfriend "Me-Julie" (Morgana Robinson). Anyway, now with the promise of a multi-million dollar deal they set off to the USA to make their fortune. What he doesn't quite clock, though, is that this offer isn't exactly recent but now in the USA he decides that there is still room for him to make his fortune - and off along that bling-brick road we duly set. I think it is really quite rare amidst the prevailing environment of political correctness for someone to take risks like this with a cinamtic character. Sure he's obnoxious and thoughtless, but by presenting that in such an overtly ridiculous and over-the-top fashion, the satiric effects are really quite effective. Those aren't just applicable to "Ali G" himself, but also to many of the other (often democratically elected) representatives of elements of society who are held up to blatant and entertaining ridicule as my taste for potent satire - long under-nourished by cinema - was given a rare treat. For me, the very point of this character is to exaggerate sentiments of intolerance, hatred and ignorance and in that he "Ali" acts as a magnet for others whose societal/racist/homophobic and even militaristic opinions belong in the dark ages. The script is often really quite brutally witty and Cohen seems prepared to set himself up just to be shot down by the real-life social media tribes who have no idea what irony actually means and who take everything on face value. It is a bit hit and miss as a drama and the closing scenes, though again making quite a strong point about ethno-discrimination, wandered a little too much into Hammer territory for me but I was really quite pleasantly surprised by the broad range of searing criticisms on display here.

This is a masterful execution of some truly funny teasing of the left side of the political spectrum and also of leading some persons on the far right side into some very shocking and thought-provoking situations. The film does a good job of reminding us of just how far some persons are willing to go and it is hard to not think of Nazi Germany. The disappointing thing with the film is that it is quite one-sided in its focus. It would not be difficult to find people also from the far left that could be made to do really shocking things, which could remind us of the Soviet Union for instance. As the film is made now it doesn't break much new ground and that makes it fall a bit flat. Update: Joshua Loudermilk, an aspiring actor, claims he realized it was a Sacha Baron Cohen film shoot and that he played along. That is seemingly corroborated by a Facebook post he made at the time of filming.