Bad Grandpa review

Bad Grandpa (15/R, 92 mins)
Director: Jeff Tremaine
★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Part the bone-worrying stunts of Jackass, part the hidden camera windups of Sacha Baron Cohen, this crude comedy caper never finds a happy middle ground. After his wife dies, 86-year-old Irving (Jackass frontman Johnny Knoxville in old-man makeup) must transport his young grandson across the country to live with his father. But along the way they stage stunts and pranks to shock or embarrass the unwitting public, such as Irving knocking over the coffin at his wife’s funeral. The main sticking point with the lack of laughs is that, unlike with Baron Cohen, it’s not the ignorant or the bigoted being targeted here, but members of the public who are generally being kind and helpful to an old man a little boy, so there’s little to be gained from seeing them duped.

The Dictator review

The Dictator (15/R, 83 mins)
Director: Larry Charles
★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
 
With the moc-doc shenanigans of Borat and Bruno having run their natural course, Sacha Baron Cohen here turns to straight narrative comedy with limited success. Cohen gives an uneven performance as the dictator of the title, General Aladeen of the North African Republic of Wadiya, who is suspected of developing WMDs and travels to America facing UN sanctions. There he’s set up and cut loose in the city, and forced to work in a health food store run by Anna Faris while trying to get his identity back. It’s not the most sophisticated setup ever but the stunning bad taste means there are a fair few vulgar laughs to be had. But it’s sloppily constructed and as likely to provoke gasps for its sheer outrageousness as anything, with a dearth of genuinely clever jokes as it races to the next envelope-pushing situation. The many heinous things Aladeen does as an untouchable despot raise chuckles, but it’s simply not sustained, and its satirical pops are obvious and small scale. It’s not unfunny, it’s just not funny enough.