sacha baron cohen – NZ Film Freak

Ladies First is one of those classic Netflix movies where you can scroll on your phone while it plays on the TV… and it’s still easy to follow.

Damian (Sacha Baron Cohen) is a businessman who is a sexist, self-important ad executive who wakes up in a parallel world where women hold all the power and men are treated the way he used to treat women.

In the parallel world, Alex (Rosamund Pike) is now the boss, and Damian is the undervalued worker within the advertising agency.

Feel like you’ve seen it before? Yes, it’s very Freaky Friday, She’s the Man, 17 Again…

What I don’t like about Ladies First – aside from almost everything – is that, it’s a lazy movie disguised as a thinker.

When in reality it’s no more layered than a muddy puddle.

At least other role-reversal comedies have an actual storyline with a bit of emotion and artistic flair.

I get it – a world where women are in traditionally men-dominated roles and vice versa – it could have almost worked. But they totally missed the mark with a couple of things.

Firstly, why are all the female bosses… masculine? The entire set up of this movie explains how women are typically more empathetic, which isn’t a flaw it’s just different. They bring femininity, a different perspective to men, along with creative ideas just like anyone else.

Yet, as soon as Alex is the boss and Damien is the ignored long-time employee, she is crude, masculine, macho and without any trace of empathy or womanliness that the movie (I thought!) was supposed to be celebrating.

I guess the point was to give men a taste of their own medicine within the realms of a cheap comedy. The stay-at-home dads doing everything while the mum slouches on the couch with a wine, the sexually inappropriate slurs, the undermining comments in the workplace…

Having said that, these stereotypes – arguably – aren’t as common anymore. Or perhaps I never made it far enough up the ladder to experience it. So even that angle missed the mark for me a little.

In any case, this idea is not only unoriginal but it wasn’t even executed well. It truely was a cut and paste, formulaic, two-dimensional movie that will be forgotten about by next week.

My only surprise was why Rosamund Pike chose to take the part, as she’s usually in the more challenging roles.

If I’m being totally honest, I turned it off with 20 minutes to go. It was just a waste of our evening.

Where have the easy-to-watch 90s and early 2000s comedies gone? I can’t put my finger on exactly why they were different… I guess they had more soul and integrity.

Ladies First might as well have been written by robots, for robots.

Jodie

Director: Larry Charles
Writers: Sacha Baron Cohen, Alec Berg, David Mandel and Jeff Schaffer
Released: May 2012
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I love Sacha Baron Cohen’s work (for the most part), Ali-G and Borat as well as his amazing performance in the musical Sweeney Todd, where we discovered that he is a half decent singer!

I went into the cinema with admittedly low expectations, since I quietly thought that perhaps Sacha had sold out after Bruno was released… Which although I did not see, I was sort of put off by all the grossed-out people I knew who did see it…

So The Dictator is basically about… A dictator… who fights against Democracy being introduced into his country. He picks on America, describing how great their country would be if their Government ditched democracy and adopted dictatorship, “the leader could help out his friends financially, forget about the poor, give 1% of the population 99% of the money…”

The Dictator was different in the fact that it was not a mockumentary… It became a Hollywood version of Borat, with Anna Faris as the love interest and a recycled character of Ali-G + Borat as the protagonist; Admiral General Hafez Aladeen with the accent slipping in some places.

But! It was certainly an enjoyable film! There were some pretty hilarious parts – despite them all being extremely racist… But why would that be a surprise?? I would mention some of the funniest lines but… I won’t.

Anna Faris played Zoe who owns the vegan/fair trade/organic/non-racist/feminist/sustainable… store that the Dictator works at whilst in America. Those scenes are pretty funny, I’m not going to lie…

Just like every Sacha Baron Cohen film, this isn’t for everybody. But if you go in with low expectations and an open mind it is a good laugh for sure – especially if you watch it with friends.
However, I think Baron Cohen should probably think of a totally new character and stick to mockumentary style.

Not bad, not bad.
Jodie’s rating: 5/10

This isn’t the trailer, but it’s an extended clip which is more funny to watch than the official trailer to be honest… 4:07 is where the most hilarious facials are at…