(CNN) -- That which does not kill us only makes us laugh. That seems to be the governing principle in this outrageously offensive, but ridiculously funny, effort from agent provocateur Sacha Baron Cohen. The "Borat" star has now exhausted the characters he introduced in "Da Ali G Show" and presumably worn out his welcome as a celebrity interviewer. In "The Dictator," his third and most outwardly conventional Hollywood vehicle, he introduces us to one "General Admiral Aladeen," a North African despot who resembles Libya's Colonel Moammar Gadhafi, but with an Osama bin Laden beard, and something of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's knack for international diplomacy. (The film is dedicated to the memory of the late Kim Jong Il.)
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Sacha Baron Cohen introduces us to one "General Admiral Aladeen," a despot
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He's abducted from his hotel and only escapes assassination by the skin of his teeth
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A barking chauvinist bigot, Aladeen makes Borat look like a puppy dog
In his big climactic speech, even the irredeemable @placeholder rises to the occasion with a brilliant piece of political oratory that turns the tables on everything we think we know about today's cultural jihad.