Ali G: Who Iz I? opens in limited release amid boycott calls and mixed reviews

Limited release and boycott calls

Ali G: Who Iz I? opens worldwide on Friday, 23 October 2026, in a release far narrower than the film's 2002 predecessor. In the Netherlands it can be seen only on Friday and Saturday, in 44 cinemas, and distributor The Searchers says it will be shown about 150 times in total. The campaign against it comes from NewsCord, a media-monitoring platform that asked readers to email cinema chains and ask them to leave the film off their screens. Donald Clarke wrote that more than 56,000 people had answered that call when he checked, while Trouw reported the group's own claim that it had sent 56,000 letters to British cinemas.

Mixed reviews

The Financial Times called the film an underpowered satire and said the character now feels essentially worn out, with little left to shock a 2026 audience. The Telegraph argued the film had potential as a commentary on cancel culture but delivers only scattered laughs. AD.nl called it tasteless and bad, writing that Baron Cohen hits no target. The Guardian's review found it sometimes funny despite what it described as spectacular bad taste, noting that the film keeps having to tell viewers who is in on the joke. Trouw reports that Cohen defended the film in a long essay for Time magazine, where he asked why he was bringing back a character some had criticised as a relic of an earlier generation.

A lawsuit threat over a staged documentary

Michael Aboud, chair of the El Paso County Republican Party, appears in the film in a training programme led by Cohen's character Erran Morad. Aboud says he believed he was taking part in a nonfiction film, and he was unaware of anything else until the Guardian contacted him on Tuesday, 20 October. He told the Guardian he intends to sue Cohen over the footage. In his statement he accused the film crew of deceiving people, saying they had first described a documentary about illegal border crossings and only later added a self-defence instructor from Israel. He closed with a call for a boycott:

No one should spend one penny watching anything he produces or appears in.

Background and the 2002 premiere

Cohen became known worldwide in 1998 through Da Ali G Show, which also aired in the Netherlands, and the hype peaked with Ali G Indahouse in 2002. Protesters gathered outside that film's London premiere and compared it to a nineteenth-century minstrel show. Peter Akinti, who organised the protest, said:

He is the new Al Jolson.

Trouw reports that Ali G Indahouse took in more than 23 million dollars in cinemas, and Cohen later followed it with Borat in 2006 and Borat Subsequent Moviefilm in 2020. Cohen has described the character's appeal in his own words:

He is funny because he is delusional.