Ali G InDaHouse

If you enjoy the Ali G character, you should get good laughs out of the film. 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. 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.