Tatiania Mills (Odeya Rush) will dislodge and eat ABC (Already Been Chewed) gum from beneath the water fountain to taunt and gross out her adversaries at school. Sir Michael Caine again does the equivalent to his career by starring in this mindless atrocity. Michael Caine plays a deposed British Caribbean Republic dictator who comes the the U.S. and teams with a high school goth loser. He does this to teach her the ways of revolution so she can overthrow the mean bully girls in her High School.
This movie was supposedly released on March 16, 2018, but I cannot find any statistics where it was shown in any brick and mortar theaters in The United States. Even Box Office Mojo shows no trace of either Dear Dictator or its original title of Coup d’Etat. It is as though it doesn’t exist except at rouge movie sites or the inevitable Amazon Prime Video for $6.99, which is $7.00 too much. Sorry, not on Netflix either.
Other than the sycophant Alfred in the Batman movies, Caine has not done anything meaningful since the masterpiece Quills, and that was almost 2 decades ago. [Editor’s Note: What about Going in Style?] [Goat: What about it?] I’m glad that Ebert is not alive to see Caine actually tunnel to a new low after the disaster that was Jaws IV.
Oh my fucking Goat, this movie was horrible on every level. Dictator and Tatiana become pen-pals and the next thing you know, he shows up not on her doorstep, but in her garage. No Problem! Mom is clued in and consents for The Dictator to stay if only he will fix the broken garage door opener. He does, and then in a deeply moving scene, he instructs Tatiana how to overthrow the factions in her High School. Brilliant! Enter the Revolution!
The shock and awe at the Mall was cringe-worthy and the side story of Tatiana’s mother and her foot-freaky dentist employer were new lows for cinema… but not as low as the scene where El Dictator sternly lectures Darlene Mills (Katie Holmes, who cannot act a lick) and daughter about the evils of American society. He then turns into some sort of 85 year-old Gordon Ramsey master chef. I want to die. Not later, but right now. Never in the history of film has any scene been so unnecessary as he shows the stupid girls how to cook.
The rest of the movie is irrelevant. I am shaking with fury that I have actually watched this movie and that it exists. The careers of everyone associated with this move will probably be destroyed, but at 85 I don’t think that Sir Caine cares.
ZERO/10.0