Ali G Sequel Review: Sacha Baron Cohen's Uneven Comeback

The premise is simple enough. Ali G - real name Alistair Leslie Graham - has spent two decades doing precisely nothing of value: "chillin', tokin' and bonin'," as the film's own synopsis so elegantly puts it. Then Julie (Morgana Robinson), his long-suffering girlfriend, drops the bombshell that she's eight months pregnant. Suddenly the boy from Staines needs income, and so he does what any self-respecting man-child would do: he flies to America to reclaim his former glory. What follows is a picaresque road trip through the strange new landscape of 2026, with Ali encountering adversaries who - according to the admittedly breathless official synopsis - threaten "his and his child's very existence."

Baron Cohen doesn't just play Ali here. He also resurrects Colonel Erran Morad and Dr. Nira Cain-N'Degeocello, two of his other signature creations, weaving them into a narrative that functions as a kind of Baron Cohen greatest-hits album with a plot stapled on. The interview segments are genuinely the engine of the film: real political and media figures, including C. Stewart Rodeheaver, Allan Lichtman, and George Santos - all playing themselves, which is a sentence that practically writes its own review - sit down with characters who have no business being in the same room as them. Clive Russell turns up as Malcolm "Rocky" Atkins, Tiffany Haddish gets a lively cameo as a lab technician, and DJ Jazzy Jeff appears as himself, because of course he does.

Let's be clear about what works. Baron Cohen remains one of the few performers alive who can make an awkward silence do comedic heavy lifting. The interview sequences crackle with the old danger - you can feel subjects realizing, mid-sentence, that they've been had. The satire of American political culture has aged like a fine, if slightly radioactive, wine; what felt absurd in 2006 now reads as documentary. And there's a real warmth in the Julie storyline that catches you off guard. Beneath the tracksuits and the mangled vocabulary, there's a story about a man finally being forced to grow up, and Robinson gives the film a grounded center it desperately needs.

What doesn't work is the connective tissue. At 89 minutes, the film still somehow feels padded, with narrative scenes that exist only to shuttle Ali from one interview to the next. The plot mechanics are flimsy, and the third-act threat to Ali and his unborn child strains credulity even by the generous standards of a franchise built on a man asking serious people ridiculous questions. Some jokes land with a thud, and the film occasionally mistakes volume for wit.

Still, the TMDb rating of 6.5/10 feels about right - a solid, imperfect return. It's not the cultural grenade the original was, but it doesn't need to be. Baron Cohen is older, the targets are softer, and the film knows it. When it leans into that awareness, it's genuinely funny. When it chases the ghost of its own past outrage, it wobbles.

Pros

• Baron Cohen's shape-shifting remains a marvel; three characters, three distinct comic energies.
• The real-person interviews deliver the film's most electric, unpredictable moments.
• Morgana Robinson's Julie gives the comedy a beating heart.
• The fatherhood arc is unexpectedly sweet without turning saccharine.
• A lean 89-minute runtime that never overstays its welcome.

Cons

• The plot is thin scaffolding around the interview set pieces.
• Some callbacks to the original land with a dull thud.
• The third-act "existential threat" subplot feels forced.
• Not every joke has aged as gracefully as the satire.

Ali G: Who Iz I? won't convert the unconverted, and it won't recapture the seismic shock of the character's early days. But for fans who've waited two decades, this is a warm, frequently funny, occasionally sloppy homecoming - a film about a man finally growing up, made by a comedian who's clearly enjoying the ride. Stream it with modest expectations and you'll leave smiling. Just don't ask Ali to explain the plot afterward.