Jeff Schaffer

And the biting script never pulls its punches, leaping us laughing at the audacity while making a serious point.

Aladeen (Baron Cohen) is the pampered dictator of Wadiya, who travels to New York to tell the UN to stop nosing around his nuclear "energy" plants. But his Uncle Tamir (Kingsley) is plotting to kill him and replace him with a double who will sign a democratic constitution essentially selling the country to oil companies. Aladeen manages to escape, but no one recognises him cleanly shaven, so he teams up with health-food activist Zoey (Faris) and a countryman (Mantzoukas) to get his country back.

Continue reading: The Dictator Review

Starring a bunch of nobodies, leavened with a few clever star cameos, and written and directed by guys you've never heard of, Eurotrip wastes no time with the setup and getting its young stars to Europe. Upon graduating from high school, Scotty (Scott Mechlowicz) gets dumped by his girlfriend (Smallville's Kristen Kreuk), who then makes out with the lead singer of the band playing at the graduation party (an oddly-placed Matt Damon, lip-synching a song called "Scotty Doesn't Know"). Simultaneously, Scotty discovers that his German e-mail pen pal, whom he thought was a guy, is actually an extremely hot blonde. Unfortunately, drunk and despondent, he has just told her to stop writing (thinking it was a guy coming on to him). Spiritually devastated, Scotty decides to head across the Atlantic with his friends - requisite crazy guy Cooper (Jacob Pitts), nerd Jamie (Travis Wester), and Jamie's tomboy sister (Michelle Trachtenberg) - to seek the Aryan beauty of his dreams.

Continue reading: Eurotrip Review