14 DAY TRIAL // If moviegoers were offended by “Borat” and “Bruno,” Sacha Baron Cohen’s previous two hits at the box office, they will undoubtedly be even more so by his upcoming film, word has it. The British actor is now shooting “The Dictator,” and the first pic of him in character has emerged online.
Dressed in an all-stars and stripes suit, including matching cap and shoes, the actor is seen walking around on the NYC set in the photos emerged online.
The explanation for his odd choice of outfit (though it’s a far cry from what he wore in “Bruno,” for instance), is that he plays a dictator who strives to keep democracy out of his country.
But there’s more potential controversy to the plot of the new project, The Film Stage notes. That is, Cohen is not playing just any dictator: he’s Saddam Hussein himself.
The film is based on the novel “Zabibah and The King,” believed to have been written by Saddam Hussein, which means it will surely strike a chord with American audiences, perhaps even more than “Bruno” did.
“Cohen stars along Ben Kingsley, Jason Mantzoukas, and Anna Faris in the ‘heroic story of a dictator who risked his life to ensure that democracy would never come to the country he so lovingly oppressed.’ We can see Cohen below in his red, white and blue colors of that country,” The Film Stage writes.
“Faris plays an organic food store owner, who changes Cohen’s dictatorial line of thinking, with some romance thrown in. Mantzoukas and Kingsley play two Middle Eastern characters,” the same e-zine notes.
The film has gone into production just recently, but it’s already generating heated debates online. Since it doesn’t come out until May 2012, it will probably get even more people talking by that time.
What makes this project different from “Borat” and “Bruno” is that it doesn’t look like another mockumentary, a genre Cohen perfected.
This also means that the actor’s fans will have more access to information on it, because secrecy will not necessarily be the key ingredient in the making of it.