Dear Dictator is a comedy film written and directed by Lisa Addario and Joe Syracuse. Starring Michael Caine and Odeya Rush, it is a mediocre farce about fitting in at school with little to recommend.
Tatiana Mills (Odeya Rush), a rebellious American girl, is given an assignment in her social studies class in high school to write a letter to a famous figure that she admires. Tatiana decides to write to Anton Vincent (Michael Caine), an infamous long-reigning island nation dictator, and the two soon become pen pals, much to the concern of her teacher Mr. Spines (Jason Biggs). After being deposed in a coup, Anton sneaks into America to hide out at Tatiana's suburban home, where the two form a grandfather-granddaughter relationship with one another.
Despite some nice familial chemistry between Odeya Rush and Michael Caine and the occasional clever comparison between a rebellion in high school and a rebellion in seizing political control, the humour in this film frequently falls flat. There are several instances where a scene could have been funny but instead the writers opt for something low brow and gross. The film's biggest problem, however, is how dated the overall concept feels. The idea of writing paper letters to pen pals in the late 2010s seems highly archaic in the digital age of the internet. I cannot help but think that this film would have fared better if it was released 15 to 20 years ago, before online communication became as commonplace it is today. This is all likely due to the fact that the film's script was apparently written all the way back in 2006, and even by that time the concept would have still felt outdated.
I rate it 5/10
Tatiana Mills (Odeya Rush), a rebellious American girl, is given an assignment in her social studies class in high school to write a letter to a famous figure that she admires. Tatiana decides to write to Anton Vincent (Michael Caine), an infamous long-reigning island nation dictator, and the two soon become pen pals, much to the concern of her teacher Mr. Spines (Jason Biggs). After being deposed in a coup, Anton sneaks into America to hide out at Tatiana's suburban home, where the two form a grandfather-granddaughter relationship with one another.
Despite some nice familial chemistry between Odeya Rush and Michael Caine and the occasional clever comparison between a rebellion in high school and a rebellion in seizing political control, the humour in this film frequently falls flat. There are several instances where a scene could have been funny but instead the writers opt for something low brow and gross. The film's biggest problem, however, is how dated the overall concept feels. The idea of writing paper letters to pen pals in the late 2010s seems highly archaic in the digital age of the internet. I cannot help but think that this film would have fared better if it was released 15 to 20 years ago, before online communication became as commonplace it is today. This is all likely due to the fact that the film's script was apparently written all the way back in 2006, and even by that time the concept would have still felt outdated.
I rate it 5/10