Directed by Sacha Baron Cohen — Screenplay by Sacha Baron Cohen, Anthony Hines, Peter Baynham, Dan Swimer, Dan Mazer, and Keisha Zollar.
Let’s start here: I am certainly not immune to Sacha Baron Cohen’s type of comedy. The first Borat film remains a mockumentary classic, and the sequel, amusingly subtitled Subsequent Moviefilm, was also quite good and revealing. In 2026, he is, however, enduring something of a cold streak. The Wahlberg-led comedy Balls Up, on Prime Video, was a dud, and Thea Sharrock’s Ladies First, on Netflix, is still one of the least successful narrative feature films of the year, to me. With his third 2026 feature, Ali G: Who Iz I?, Cohen tries to bring one of his famous/infamous 2000s characters back to life and interrogate his behavior in a mockumentary-style comedy that aims for Borat but doesn’t come anywhere close. Bizarrely, on October 28th, only a few days after its theatrical release on October 23rd, it was already dropped on Prime Video. Its short theatrical window isn’t the only surprising thing about it, because I also think this mockumentary shows that Cohen’s once-beloved bit is either getting stale or he just doesn’t know how to elicit the same comedic reactions anymore.
Sacha Baron Cohen’s Ali G: Who Iz I? follows the titular character as he tries to resurrect his career by going to America, along with his pregnant girlfriend, Julie (played by Morgana Robinson), to get in touch with HBO, test TikTok and OnlyFans, and search for his father. Meanwhile, Cohen has also resurrected a few of his characters from the more recent series Who Is America? in an effort to construct a larger scripted narrative thread. These are Erran Morrad, an Israeli expert on warfare, and Dr. Nira Cain-N’Degeocello, an over-the-top lecturer focused on political correctness. In the film, the latter is hellbent on getting Ali G cancelled, and he’s willing to sacrifice his own orifices to get his DNA in an attempt to reveal the British rapper as a cultural appropriator.
Interestingly, this is Sacha Baron Cohen’s directorial debut, and you can really tell that he did not seek the services of a veteran director for this project. The film tries to juggle the mix of mockumentary-esque stunts and pranks on people who are, supposedly, not “in on it” with more cinematic storytelling focused on Dr. Nira and Ali G’s disagreements. Unlike the Borat films, this juggling act misses the mark. Whenever the film makes the switch, the seams are obvious. It also doesn’t help that neither half of the film is particularly successful, with the ‘cinematic,’ scripted storytelling elements being particularly ineffective. Although most of the film struggles to even earn mild chuckles, there are moments when it livens up. There’s a bit with a realtor walking from room to room to communicate for Ali and his girlfriend that works relatively well, but that’s about it for the Ali G portion of the film. The Dr. Nira section centered on political correctness lands with a thud and constantly feels like a lesser version of what you saw him do in Who Is America?
I should also add that there’s an AI-generated bit where Ali G presents an apology video featuring AI-generated versions of people like Nelson Mandela, Tupac, Whitney Houston, Greta Thunberg, and Adolf Hitler. The bit falls flat because rather than leading to immediate outrage, the people watching it just leave the room one by one. It’s one of several bits that are just off to such an extent that you end up feeling perplexed by the fact that those sections weren’t left on the cutting room floor. It is probably the most obvious and in-your-face use of AI that I’ve seen in a major release, though it being in poor taste is obviously a part of the joke, as it illustrates Ali G’s poor judgment. At the same time, though, it also reflects poorly on the film, as it only made me skeptical of how much of what we’re being presented with in the entire film is actually human-made and honestly presented.
The film only really gets interesting in the final third. This is the part of the film where Cohen attempts to showcase the appalling acts that right-wing voters and extremists in America are willing to do on camera in Trump’s America. Borat Subsequent Moviefilm did a really good job of highlighting this, and Ali G: Who Iz I?, again, feels like a less impactful version of what came before. That said, there are moments that reveal horrific behavior, and thus this is where the film feels the most revealing and shocking, even if it isn’t presenting new insights. Among other things, in these moments, we see Ali G lead a ‘free speech’ show with Nazi salutes, and we see George Santos participate in a repulsive Holocaust-inspired game on the aforementioned show. So, I think it is fair to say that the film is more disturbing than it is funny.
Ultimately, Ali G: Who Iz I? is a less successful version of Sacha Baron Cohen’s other mockumentaries. Here he struggles mightily with the narrative juggling act. I also think that, despite this being a feature-length film, it only has enough mockumentary-style disturbing material for a single thirty-minute episode of Who Is America? To add to that, it is meant to be a comedy, but arguably its most chuckleworthy moment is a celebrity appearance during the end credits. Other than that, most of the comedy here just feels stale at this point, which is a shame. That’s roughly two-thirds of the film that is old hat, unfunny, or just outright ineffective.
3 out of 10
– Review written by Jeffrey Rex Bertelsen.
