Each Sacha Baron Cohen Character Ranked Worst To Best
Boyacasha! It’s Nice!!! Which Cohen character stands above the rest?
Sacha Baron Cohen has been a staple of the comedy industry for over two decades now. In that time he has become mostly known for his characters and deliberately provocative films. The philosophy behind his work relates to the idea of manipulating stereotype to bring out reactions from those that he involves with the film. Often this works best in his mockumentary features, but still has an impact on his traditional live-action movies.
The cast that Cohen has assembled throughout his career is highly diverse, filled with multiple variations on class, sexuality and nationality, with the films he makes on these characters often going on to be big success stories.
This article will be specifically concentrating on the characters he has created with large film productions, and thus Who Is America won't be making an appearance on it, despite the wealth of character brought along in that series.
Additionally, although he has had a lot of successful roles in other films, any character he has played that wasn't a creation of his mind won't appear on the list. Whilst many such as the station inspector from Hugo are some of his best, he didn't create them, and so they cannot be included.
5. General Aladeen
The Dictator had some great moments hidden within it. John C Riley's torture scene was fantastic, and quite a few of Cohen's one-liners worked. Overall, however, it fell flat compared to the standard quality of the comedian.
Usually, when he attacks politics and ignorance it is done so in a less conventional way. The problem with General Aladeen is that the concept of a dictator is a little too generalised, overall lacking real character, leaving it all feeling a little too simple. There is nothing about the character that feels special - he's just a power hungry politician.
Typically at the climax of Cohen's films, his characters have learned a lesson and genuinely changed, but this one doesn't. Whilst General Aladeen claims to have learned about democracy and plans to alter his governing methods, it's apparent that this isn't really true. Although that may be the films intention: to show how those in power will never honestly give it up. It makes the journey of the film feel hollow, and viewers can question whether anything they went through was worth it.
Overall it had a bit of promise and some well-executed scenes, but Aladeen is definitely Cohen's weakest character, due to a lack of development and an absence of good humour.