Alert Ryan Seacrest: The Dictator is loose in New York City! Or at least he will be once the plot of Sacha Baron Cohen's latest comedy unfolds!
A storyline has finally been revealed in the just-released new trailer for the comedy, which hits theaters May 11, one that goes beyond the previously seen Gadhafi-was-a-buffoon satire and heads straight into Borat-style, lost-in-America territory.
Here's what we've learned:
1. You Can Take the Man Out of the Beard...: Cohen's megalomaniacal, too-dumb-to-be-scary (which is the point, of course) Middle Eastern despot Admiral General Aladeen is invited to America to address the United Nations. But it turns out just to be a ruse to deliver him into the hands of John C. Reilly's smarmy government agent, who, gasp, cuts off Aladeen's beard, thereby apparently making him unrecognizable to everyone in New York City and leaving him adrift with no money, no urn full of ashes, nothing.
2. Aladeen's All Washed Up: The displaced dictator gets water-cannoned when he tries to climb the wall at the U.N. to deliver his speech. From the looks of this scene, and the jean shorts he's sporting in others, Cohen was indeed willing to go the physical humiliation route once again.
3. Boy Meets Boy, Er, Girl: Lucky for Aladeen, a sweet-natured gal played by Anna Faris (totally pulling off a brunette pixie cut) sees him get hosed and helps him out. Do we see some culture shock and life lessons on the horizon? That is, after Aladeen tells Faris, when she asks him to take his hands off her breasts, "Those are breasts? I thought you were a boy."
4. Extraneous Slaps Are Always Funny: How I Met Your Mother proved it with Slapsgiving, and Cohen continues to prove the rule when a commoner dares criticize Aladeen's performance behind the register at the sustainable-foods grocery store managed by Faris' character.
5. Air America: Cohen pulls out the standard, white-Americans-freaked-out-by-bearded-foreign-guys-on-aircraft joke, but it's too early to tell if he does anything exceptionally new or funny with the played-out subject matter. Either way, surely the helicopter scene isn't the only jab at this country's xenophobic tendencies, already spotlighted so effectively in Borat, so we hope The Dictator offers a fresh take on Cohen's the-joke's-on-everybody brand of humor.
So, is The Dictator looking more like a must-see in May? Sound off in the comments!