Ali G Returns After 20 Years: Baron Cohen's Sequel Punches Up and Down

Sacha Baron Cohen has revived Ali G on screen for the first time in more than 20 years, and the sequel has already drawn a legal threat. A Republican leader embarrassed by the new film, Ali G: Who Iz I?, tells the Guardian he plans to sue Baron Cohen, calling him "A liar and a pervert."

The Guardian's review, published alongside that exclusive interview, sets the stakes plainly: if you liked the original, you'll like this less; if you disliked it, you'll dislike it more. The critic argues Baron Cohen's prankster now has to battle his own irrelevance while chasing big laughs and the approval of a new generation.

What has changed since 2002?

The first Ali G film, Ali G in Da House, arrived in 2002 as a fully scripted narrative comedy. The sequel abandons that format. It is, essentially, another live-ammo series of hoaxes — real people, hidden intentions — with some spectacular bad taste inflicted on targets the reviewer splits into "the deserving and less deserving."

The film satirises what the review calls "the shamelessness of anti-woke free speech martyrs," punching up and down with grossout cringe. Some of the dupes are big names, which the reviewer declines to reveal. The climax stitches the victims together using body doubles and, presumably, covert reshooting.

Who are the characters?

Baron Cohen deploys two subordinate figures alongside Ali G himself:

• Erran Morad, a sinister Mossad/IDF officer turned US security consultant, previously seen in Baron Cohen's TV series Who Is America? (2018).
• Dr Nira Cain-N'Degrocello, a new creation: a grotesquely supercilious white liberal and self-appointed scourge of cultural appropriation.

The reviewer reads the new character as Baron Cohen's pre-emptive strike — a way to mock, in advance, the accusation that his comedy is racist. It's a high-stakes move. As the review puts it, Baron Cohen blunders with "the semi-intentional force of an XL bully" into the question of whether jokes are still allowed.

Is it funny?

Sometimes, the Guardian concedes. The critic compares the film's athletic vigour to the umpteenth Jackass movie — the kind of thing you catch yourself laughing at despite yourself. Broad and crass, in fact "always is," the film still lands moments through sheer physical commitment to the prank.

The review is otherwise measured about the craft: not a written-through story, but a string of hoaxes with a fabricated big silly ending.

What does this change for Baron Cohen?

The legal threat from the Republican leader signals the real risk in the format. Baron Cohen built his career on live-ammo comedy, from Who Is America? to Borat, and each new round raises the same question: can ambush satire still find targets worth punking, and audiences willing to laugh? With a promised lawsuit now attached to Ali G: Who Iz I?, that question has moved from the opinion pages to the courts.