Ali G Indahouse
Director: Mark Mylod
Year Released: 2002
Rating: 1.0
Infantile vehicle for Sacha Baron Cohen's dumbass hip hop poser persona manages to sneak in a few (really) cheap, desperate gags but is almost entirely cringe-worthy. Cohen's far superior TV episodes worked so much better because he would alternate characters (Bruno, Borat and Ali G), granting each only skit-length pieces (he let his Ali G character interview political figures as a comment on the dumbing down of society), but here the Ali G creation simply cannot sustain feature-length treatment (for a similarly lame mockery of white boys from the suburbs emulating urban culture, there's always Malibu's Most Wanted with comedic wizard Jamie Kennedy). That Cohen was able to follow this with the immensely successful and equally crude Borat movie is actually kind-of landmark: he stuck with the pseudo-documentary format, shocked audiences and made one of the most effective satires of the '00s.
