Ali G: Who Iz I? review – Sacha Baron Cohen’s high-stakes satire punches up and down with spectacular bad taste

Baron Cohen’s live-ammo prankster is back, 20 years on, but has to battle with his own irrelevance in search of big laughs and the approval of a new generation • Exclusive: Republican leader embarrassed by film says he plans to sue Sacha Baron Cohen: ‘A liar and a pervert’ If you liked Sacha Baron Cohen’s Ali G the first time around, you’ll like this less; if you disliked it, you’ll dislike this more; if you suspected it was racist, you’ll be more emboldened to say so – especially as Baron Cohen has dreamed up a whole new character apparently to pre-empt and mock precisely that objection.

Broad and crass as it often is – in fact always is – this Ali G sequel is sometimes funny: the athletic vigour of our hero’s pranking and punking is like the umpteenth Jackass film at which you might find yourself laughing, and Baron Cohen blunders with the semi-intentional force of an XL bully into the issue of whether jokes are still allowed. Unlike the first film, Ali G in Da House from 2002, this is not a full written-through narrative. It is basically another live-ammo series of hoaxes with some spectacular bad taste perpetrated upon the deserving and less deserving; it satirises the shamelessness of anti-woke free speech martyrs, punching up and down…