The Dictator (2012 film) comparisons to the Marx Brothers' "Duck Soup" and Charlie Chaplin's "The Great Dictator"." The film has officially been banned in Tajikistan, described as "unlikely" to be shown in Turkmenistan, shortened to 71 minutes by the censorship in Uzbekistan, and banned from screens two weeks after its premiere in Kazakhstan. In Pakistan, only the censored version has been released. Rumours were circulating that the film has been also informally banned from showing in Belarus, but state officials denied this referring to deficiency of properly equipped movie theaters suitable for showing the film distributed exclusively in digital format. The film was also
Dictator (novel) becoming a byword for intelligent, topical, articulate action romps that slightly send themselves up.", although he also notes that, given the 1997 setting of the first Samuel Carver novel, his age in this one would be somewhat unrealistic. Rich Westwood, reviewing for "Euro Crime", stated that "Dictator is an ideal holiday novel for a thriller fan, with a hard-as-nails protagonist, satisfyingly gritty action sequences, beautiful women and a collection of very nasty baddies". The novel was also well reviewed by G.S. of "CrimeSquad", who awarded it five out of five and commented that "Dictator is an outstanding novel which has