Sacha Baron Cohen Is Hit-And-Miss In 'Who Is America?'
Sacha Baron Cohen likes to dress up and try to get people to say dumb things, and in one case in his new Showtime series, he finds success. But other times, the show falls flat.
Sacha Baron Cohen has two basic shticks that he uses in his new Showtime show Who Is America?, which premiered Sunday night. One of them works well, and the other one doesn't. Unfortunately, of the four segments in the premiere, he uses the effective strategy once and the ineffective one three times.
Those unfamiliar with Cohen's past work in films like Borat and Bruno need only to know that what he does, in short, is interview (and interact with) people while inhabiting various absurd alter egos. It's a prank show, for all intents and purposes.
The more effective incarnation of this routine happens when he persuades powerful people that whatever persona he's adopted is an of theirs, and then he pulls them along, gently, gently,
