Dear Dictator

Tatiana Mills (Odeya Rush) is an American suburban teen. Her single mom Darlene (Katie Holmes) is having an affair with her married dentist boss Dr Charles Seaver (Seth Green) with a foot fetish. The whale-tailed mean girls at school call themselves the Slushies. She has a crush on her Christian friend Denny. Her social studies teacher Mr Spines (Jason Biggs) give the class an assignment to write to a pen pal. She picks ruthless Latin American dictator Anton Vincent (Michael Caine). When American backed rebels overtake his country, he finds his way into Tatiana's garage.

It's a wacky Mean Girls take with a bloody dictator. I'm a little leery of Caine as a Latin American dictator. Rush is a pretty good standard grumpy teen. There are a lot of wackiness but it rarely results in laughs. There are some moments of surprise laughs, mostly with Rush and Caine together. I really like that combo. I do wish for taking on more risk and pushing more comedy into the movie. It does help that I like both Rush and Caine.

This film tells the story of a dictator hiding in an American teenage girl's suburban home.

The story is quite far fetched, and I guess that is the charm of the film. Initially I thought even Michael Caine acted poorly, but then I realise he was just in character. It is quite a fun, and hilarious film that provides brain off entertainment.

Surprisingly, I enjoyed it a lot - even though the premise didn't excite me at first. But, I love mother-daughter movies, especially when the daughter is a snotty but vulnerable teenager. The cast is great, especially the two females leads. Clever and cute - but not too cute. Reminded me of Mrs. Doubtfire - without the drag impersonations.

The movie is mildly amusing. Mr. Caine probably did this for a couple of more reasons than the money. Considering the budget of the movie, he probably was only paid a fraction of what he normally gets these days. I suspect he is not offered a lot of roles these days as Hollywood lacks imagination to write roles for men his age and there is, as has always been, the continued ageism of Hollywood. Mr. Caine may also have been amused by the insight provided by the script into how revolutions are fomented and can even be used to get rid of the top clique in high school. Times change but that part of high school has not. There is ALWAYS a group that revels in making others feel inadequate and there is some voyeur satisfaction in seeing such a group taken down. Regarding my headline, I was expressing my love of Mr. Caine, both for his superb acting and the kind of man he is, intelligent and kind, one who has taken the time all his life to fight racism and other forms of inequality.

I think there is a special post-BS 2018 stage that some people have come to, that you may have to be in to enjoy this movie. That having been said, I enjoyed it. Was going in hoping for light fun B movie and was not disappointed. I saw they murdered this movie on tomatoes, which is silly, cause not terrible. Probably it's also notable on afterthought that it was not overly cliche anywhere I recall.

Maybe the first intro to dictator scene could have been done a tad better.

The two starring ladies were believable and fun, and Michael Cain did it just right as far as I'm concerned.

Not the blockbuster of the year or anything, but I laughed enough times for it to be worth it.