Sasha Baron Cohen‘s career exploded with a secondary character that he featured in his comedy series Da Ali G Show. That character was Borat. When the Borat film was released, Cohen became an overnight sensation and a new impression had become ingrained in pop culture ad nauseum. Cohen would find himself doing more traditional comedies, but he would return to his roots as a professional troll with Brüno. Then, he would revisit Borat with a sequel in 2020.
Now, Cohen revisits his classic character, the wannabe “voice of the yoof,” Ali G, in the new film Ali G: Who Iz I? Amazon MGM Studios has just released the trailer for the film, which is slated to hit theaters on October 23.
According to Deadline, the film was kept under wraps until Cohen was recently spotted as Ali G at Wimbledon and there had been a news leak that he was making a new film. In the trailer, Ali G makes note of how the world had changed since we last saw him. He would then share his revolutionary new idea for “the first film with real people, not actors,” as he has a camera crew follow him for a documentary. Ali G would also attempt to modernize and stay relevant by making TikToks and capitalizing on trends.
For the first time, Cohen is also on board as the director of his mockumentary and Morgana Robinson also stars in the film.
The synopsis reads,
After twenty years spent “chillin’, tokin’ and bonin’”, Ali G is shocked to discover that his long-term girlfriend, Julie, is 8 months pregnant. Faced with an extra mouth to feed, he gets off his batty and heads to America to reclaim his former glory… but soon encounters adversaries who will ultimately threaten his and his child’s very existence.
Cohen’s notoriety has prevented him from being able to revisit his now-famous characters with the intention of fooling subjects as people have now caught on to the act. It was even made a plot point in the 2020 sequel to his breakout hit, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, where Borat found himself running from excited fans looking to get in on the joke.
Since that film, Cohen has created a multitude of newer characters for his Showtime original series, Who is America? His new characters would include an anti-terrorist Mossad agent, a far-right citizen journalist, an overly sensitive liberal lecturer, a recently released British ex-convict, an Italian billionaire playboy, and a Finnish YouTuber.