Dear Dictator

A foreign dictator (Michael Caine) and a misfit teen (Odeya Rush) become pen pals in a story of an unlikely friendship. With a premise that sounds like a fever dream, the tone is set for an odd clash of genres as directors Lisa Addario and Joe Syracuse mix a Mean Girls-style narrative with fish-out-of-water comedy. However, these disparate elements don't mesh, and are hurt by a terrible script that boasts highly unlikely plot twists (a scene featuring the "milk-boarding" of a suspected spy is as ridiculous as it sounds). Caine makes no effort to hide his cockney accent, while co-star Rush's punky teen is so poorly written she almost becomes the villain of her own story. On the plus side, Katie Holmes's man-hungry mother gets some laughs, as the actress throws herself into the nonsense, but Dear Dictator is so jumbled and directionless that perhaps the only thing to recommend it is how strange things get before the end.