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Movie Review

‘Dictator’ tweaks broadly and carries a big shtick

By Wesley Morris

 |  Globe Staff  

  May 14, 2012

**1/2 The Dictator The despot here is a tall, fit, flamboyantly bearded North African goofball (Sacha Baron Cohen) who winds up working in a Brooklyn food co-op. That’s the best idea in the movie, which lacks the cultural tension in “Borat” and “Bruno,” satires that Cohen and the director Larry Charles previously made together. This one is lazy, a satire that can’t bring itself to properly satirize anything. (88 min., R) (Wesley Morris)

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