Alistair Leslie Graham ("Ali G") is a young man from Staines, a small suburban town to the west of London. The central joke of the film is that Ali is white, British, middle-class and lives in a quiet part of suburbia but tries to imitate what he believes to be the lifestyle and culture of working-class urban blacks, although his idea of black culture is a curious mixture of American inner-city gangsterism and Caribbean Rastafarianism. Ali's fast-talking dialect is a mixture of Jamaican patois and London street slang; the character is said to be based upon the white disc jockey Tim Westwood, who affects a Caribbean accent despite being the son of the Anglican Bishop of Peterborough.
Ali G, of course, is a creation of the British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, and existed well before this film was made, having appeared in various television programmes since 1998. (Another of Cohen's characters, the Kazakh journalist Borat, makes a brief appearance here). The format of "Ali G Indahouse" is different to that of Cohen's next film "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan". That film is a spoof document in which Cohen tries to persuade real-life members of the public that Borat is a real person. Although in the original television programmes Cohen had tried to persuade people that Ali too was a real individual, often in spoof interviews with celebrities, he obviously realised that by 2002 the character was too well-known for such a format to work. The film, therefore, is simply a fictitious story with Ali at the centre.
Ali and his gang ("Da West Staines Massiv") get involved in a campaign to prevent the closure of a local leisure centre and as a result are dragged into a murky political intrigue by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to supplant the Prime Minister; this plot line may reflect the difficult relationship between the then Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Chancellor Gordon Brown, often seen as plotting against Blair. As a result of this intrigue Ali is elected to Parliament in a by-election; the word "Indahouse" in the title is a corruption of "In the house", the house in question being the House of Commons. After various vicissitudes all ends happily and Ali's beloved leisure centre is saved.
"Ali G Indahouse" is not quite in the same class as the ""Borat" film, in which Cohen had some serious points to make behind all the vulgarity and the madness. The idea was to express outrageous views in order to shock people or to trick them into agreeing with him, and thereby to expose levels of racism and prejudice in the United States. There is nothing quite of this nature in the "Ali G" film; despite the political send-ups it is not really making any serious points about British politics. The political plot, in fact, is not really important. The film is really an excuse for a display of Sacha Baron Cohen's brand of humour, which can be an acquired taste. As in the "Borat" film, the humour on display here is often vulgar, crude and offensive - and often hilarious. Ali talks a lot about "respect" (or "restecp" as he spells it), but he doesn't have a lot of restecp for anyone, certainly not for the powerful or the pretentious, and punctures their pretensions with a series of devastating put-downs. (Most of his one-liners, alas, are too crude to quote here).The film is not for anyone easily offended by sexual, scatological or drug references, or for anyone holding to high standards of political correctness. (Ali habitually refers to women, including his girlfriend "Me Julie" as "hos" or "bitches" and to homosexuals as "batty boys"). For anyone else, however, there is a lot to laugh at. 6/10
Ali G, of course, is a creation of the British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, and existed well before this film was made, having appeared in various television programmes since 1998. (Another of Cohen's characters, the Kazakh journalist Borat, makes a brief appearance here). The format of "Ali G Indahouse" is different to that of Cohen's next film "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan". That film is a spoof document in which Cohen tries to persuade real-life members of the public that Borat is a real person. Although in the original television programmes Cohen had tried to persuade people that Ali too was a real individual, often in spoof interviews with celebrities, he obviously realised that by 2002 the character was too well-known for such a format to work. The film, therefore, is simply a fictitious story with Ali at the centre.
Ali and his gang ("Da West Staines Massiv") get involved in a campaign to prevent the closure of a local leisure centre and as a result are dragged into a murky political intrigue by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to supplant the Prime Minister; this plot line may reflect the difficult relationship between the then Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Chancellor Gordon Brown, often seen as plotting against Blair. As a result of this intrigue Ali is elected to Parliament in a by-election; the word "Indahouse" in the title is a corruption of "In the house", the house in question being the House of Commons. After various vicissitudes all ends happily and Ali's beloved leisure centre is saved.
"Ali G Indahouse" is not quite in the same class as the ""Borat" film, in which Cohen had some serious points to make behind all the vulgarity and the madness. The idea was to express outrageous views in order to shock people or to trick them into agreeing with him, and thereby to expose levels of racism and prejudice in the United States. There is nothing quite of this nature in the "Ali G" film; despite the political send-ups it is not really making any serious points about British politics. The political plot, in fact, is not really important. The film is really an excuse for a display of Sacha Baron Cohen's brand of humour, which can be an acquired taste. As in the "Borat" film, the humour on display here is often vulgar, crude and offensive - and often hilarious. Ali talks a lot about "respect" (or "restecp" as he spells it), but he doesn't have a lot of restecp for anyone, certainly not for the powerful or the pretentious, and punctures their pretensions with a series of devastating put-downs. (Most of his one-liners, alas, are too crude to quote here).The film is not for anyone easily offended by sexual, scatological or drug references, or for anyone holding to high standards of political correctness. (Ali habitually refers to women, including his girlfriend "Me Julie" as "hos" or "bitches" and to homosexuals as "batty boys"). For anyone else, however, there is a lot to laugh at. 6/10