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Ali G InDaHouse
- Review Date: February 4, 2008
- R
- Genre: Comedy
- 2002
Common Sense Media says
Pre-Borat, a raunchy spoof of a hip-hop pretender.
Parents say
Kids say
What parents need to know
Parents need to know that in this movie from the creator of Borat, sex and drug jokes are rampant and spring up in the most unlikely and unsuitable places (like making a lewd remark to the Queen of England). Though Ali G and his foul-mouthed posse are openly homophobic (tossing around the anti-gay slur "batty boy"), they also experiment with gay sex at the end (and decide they like it). The street-gang lifestyle -- at least a white-boy mimicry of it -- is made to look fun and empowering. There are lots of fantasy-figure girls in skimpy bikinis, and quick flashes of female toplessness (in still photos) and the (fake) tip of Ali's enormous penis. Fat people are the subject of repeated gags.
What's the story?
Ali (actually "Alistair Graham") is a chap who styles himself a trendy rapper/club MC, speaks in a West Indian patois, and acts like his world is an ethnic ghetto of gangs, guns, whores, and hip-hop. No, he's not in South Central L.A., he lives in Staines, a sleepy suburb outside of London, a place more like Wallace & Gromit's 'hood. One of Ali G's passions (besides sex, marijuana, and silly turf battles with rival posses) is a small rec center, where he mentors little kids not to be Boyz-N-the-Hood casualties. When the government cuts funds to the center, Ali G stages a protest outside the Houses of Parliament. This gets him noticed by the scheming Deputy Prime Minister (Charles Dance), who decides Ali is the biggest idiot ever, and if Ali G went into politics the government would collapse from embarrassment and scandal, and the Deputy PM could take over. Elected, Ali G and his "keepin' it real" policies (only admitting immigrants who are thin, pretty women; using drug deals as classroom math lessons) prove amazingly popular instead.
Is it any good?
Comic actor Sacha Baron Cohen created the character of Ali G on TV and took him to the movies in ALI G INDAHOUSE, a theatrical feature that saw little release in the U.S., despite Ali G's cult following on cable and his takeoff on American rap/hip-hop culture. It's now on DVD, as are episodes of Cohen's Da Ali G Show, which had a "prank" talk format -- unsuspecting interviewees confronted with Ali (and sometimes Cohen's alternate character Borat) and aghast at his inane/offensive questions. None of that is in this movie, a more standard triumph-of-the-nitwit farce.
You know the drill: an uninhibited, overgrown kid prevails over stuffy authority-figure villains from higher social classes. Cohen's comic timing is razor-sharp and nothing's to be taken seriously. If you enjoy the character you should get good laughs out of the film, and the dumb-guy gags make it so parents can interpret the satire as anti-hip-hop or pro-hip-hop (kids will lean to the latter). But Ali G does work best in half-hour doses. Furthermore, obscene language, toilet humor and sex/drug fantasies are full-on here, not just inferred as they were on the talk show.
What families can talk about
Families can talk about the romanticizing of "hip-hop" gang life and young people who live by the codes of urban ghettoes, even though they've never set foot in one. What do young people get from pretending they live in urban war zones? And is it all that different from the granddads pretending to be gunslinger cowboys as kids? When does the rap lifestyle get harmful? What other movies use exaggerated characters to lampoon real-life trends?
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AGE
Um, this movie gets a big NO! Crass and rude in so many ways. Not worth viewing at all.
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AGE
Sacha Baron Cohen's first feature film is particularly an average comedy. Strong sex and drug use.
You need to know that "Ali G Indahouse" is not a mockumentary, no intelligent attempt to make fun of America's points of view, but a normal comedy.
It has its funny moments and is surely better then most other comedies, but is still not what i call Sacha Baron Cohen's best. Still, it has its laughters and is no waste of time.
There are sexual jokes. Several scenes where sex is implied but never really shown, a dog licks a man's privates (under a sheet), another man is implied to be a sodomist (having oral sex with a horse), later we see him in an explicit position though nothing is seen.
Near the beginning Ali has a bullet hole in his pants and his ridiculously long penis falls out (more comical than anything else).
Two men have sex (seen, no explicit nudity).
Several scenes include drug use, mostly by Ali G.
Language is like in most R-rated movies.
You need some maturity to see this is all for comic effect and not taken to be seriously.
Viewers 14 and up.
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| Studio: | Universal Studios Home Entertainment |
| Director: | Mark Mylod |
| Cast: | Michael Gambon, Rhona Mitra, Sacha Baron Cohen |
| Genre: | Comedy |
| Run time: | 88 minutes |
| Theatrical release date: | March 22, 2002 |
| DVD release date: | November 2, 2004 |
| MPAA rating: | R |
| MPAA explanation: | strong sexual content, pervasive crude humor, language and drug content. |
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