Playful, irreverent and unafraid to be politically incorrect, the pair script with assurance and direct with stylish understatement, pairing character and physical comedy to entertaining effect.
75
RogerEbert.comSimon Abrams
RogerEbert.comSimon Abrams
The just-shy-of-great teen comedy Dear Dictator is the rare high-concept coming-of-age story with enough warmth and smart-ass charm to (hopefully!) make it accessible for a fairly wide cross-section of moviegoers.
Pleasant enough to watch, even innocuous, Dear Dictator is something that gets worse the more you think about it.
40
Village VoiceTatiana Craine
Village VoiceTatiana Craine
Although the filmmakers name-check and appear to draw inspiration from Mean Girls, they’ve missed the mark on truly biting satire, leaving Dear Dictator toothless and silly.
Simultaneously preposterous and dull, Dear Dictator is the kind of movie where music and wardrobe choices — like the mean girls’ stridently visible underwear — substitute for character.
38
Slant MagazineWes Greene
Slant MagazineWes Greene
The potential comic absurdities of the premise are squandered as soon as the film settles into a tepid coming-of-age tale.
The cast, including Jason Biggs as a dorky social studies teacher, does what it can with the toothless, painfully unfunny, thoroughly unconvincing material. How some movies get made is truly a mystery.