Booyakasha: Ali G Is Back

Booyakasha, then. After more than two decades gathering dust in the wardrobe, next to the durag and the yellow-tinted shades, Ali G is apparently back. Sacha Baron Cohen has quietly wrapped a new film built around his first proper creation, and true to form nobody saw it coming. Variety and Deadline both report the thing was shot in secret, the same guerrilla approach Cohen used for the two Borat films, and not a single frame leaked during production. World of Reel reckons he was spotted in character in Oxfordshire back in July and September of last year, which is about the only breadcrumb anyone managed to find.

For those too young to remember, this is where it all started. Ali G first turned up on Channel 4’s The 11 O’Clock Show in 1998 before graduating to Da Ali G Show, three series of a man in a string vest asking Noam Chomsky whether languages were invented so that two people who fancied each other could communicate. That was the trick. Cohen would sit a genuinely serious person opposite a character who appeared to understand nothing, then let them slowly unravel. Buzz Aldrin, Newt Gingrich, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the odd future president. All of them playing straight man to a bloke from Staines pretending to be from the streets.

The 2002 film, Ali G Indahouse, was the wobblier moment. It never got a proper release in the States and made the bulk of its money at home in the UK, which is a polite way of saying it was one for the fans. The show, though, is the reason people still quote him. It aged into a cult classic the way most of the good stuff does, by being funny and slightly awkward to explain to anyone who wasn’t there.

Whether the world of 2026 wants Ali G back is another question entirely. The A.V. Club has already pointed out, not unfairly, that the character sits somewhere between satire and something you would rather not have to defend at a dinner party. Cohen himself told Marc Maron years ago that Ali G was partly an attempt to needle the establishment, which is a lovely line and also precisely what you would say if you had built a career on it.

Far Out reports the whole thing grew out of a stand-up tour that never happened, including a secret set in Sydney back in 2021 that Cohen later owned up to in GQ. His stated reason was simple enough. He missed hearing people laugh in the room rather than waiting three months for a cinema to do it for him.

No title, no release date, no studio confirmed, no comment from his people. Which, if you know how Cohen operates, is entirely the point. The man does his best work when you have no idea it is coming. Respect.

by Decoded Magazine

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