This time however, Baron Cohen reveals the full on, mass-murdering Jew-hating tendencies in Trump’s America. Whether we needed Baron Cohen’s most famous alter ego Ali G to host a TV game show in which contestants including the disgraced former congressman George Santos hurry against the clock to throw life-sized dolls dressed as “illegals” (including one wearing a tzitzit) into pretend gas chambers before hitting a button marked Zyklon B, in order to reveal this is open to question.
This is one of many outlandish scenes in Ali G’s highly unanticipated comeback. Those who, like me, thought the white boy from Staines who is desperate to be Black was once a very funny idea but is now about as over as Benny Hill, will take some persuading that a revival is a good idea. But persuade he does, with the subtlety of a baseball bat.
In his debut as writer/director Baron Cohen’s strategy for comedy could be described as carpet bombing. Supported by Morgana Robinson as his dim-witted, pregnant girlfriend Julie, the plot takes the wind from the sails of those who bitterly complain that Ali G is a quasi-racist creation whose mannerisms both make fun of and appropriate black culture.
No nuance: Baron Cohen and Morgana Robinson as his dim-witted, pregnant girlfriend Julie (Credit: Amazon MGM Studios)[Missing Credit]
That ghost is laid with the revival of another of Baron Cohen’s characters, Dr. Nira Cain-N’Degecello, a beyond-woke professor of “Afro diasporic ethnomusicology” who attempts to mobilise the Black community against Ali G. Clever. It is difficult to argue against a film’s existence using the very reasons expressed in the film.
Ali’s other enemy is macho Israeli Colonel Erran Morad who has “been in member of Mossad for – I mean has not been a member of Mossad – for 15 years.” Morad is spearheading a plot to prevent Ali G’s baby from being born in the USA, thus preventing his thousands of other spawn having a right of entry. At least I think that’s the argument. In any case a motley crew of MAGA footsoldiers is conscripted to whisk the baby over the Mexican border.
In A-team style, Morad’s vehicle which is disguised as a kosher kebab truck is converted into an ambulance. This enables Morad and the MAGA faithful to launch their mission to deliver Ali G’s baby by pretending to be medics.
Somehow Baron Cohen’s plot survives the involvement of an unwitting cast who reveal the lengths to which ordinary (and extraordinarily stupid) people are capable of going when persuaded they are part of a cause that is making their lives worthwhile.
If the film, which is only available in cinemas this weekend before streaming on Amazon Prime, is up for any award it will be for the production’s prosthetics department.
Baron Cohen’s face is unrecognisable as Nira Cain and Colonel Morad, while the newborn baby is heartbreakingly realistic. Less convincing is the cutting edge weaponry with which Morad trains his army of far right amateurs. These include an armoury of buttocks with a hidden gun barrel. They were designed to scare and then kill homophobic ISIS fighters, explains Morad.
Those who go to the cinema will be divided between those who laugh and those who want to leave, and those who belong to both camps.
But all will agree that there is no greater display of chutzpah than Baron Cohen in full anarchic sail.
