In May 2012, local councillors in Staines voted to officially rename the town "Staines-upon-Thames", in order to boost local economy and avoid gangland associations due to the negative portrayal of the town in this movie.
The opening gangland dream sequence was shot in in "gangstaville", East Los Angeles, California. The rest of this movie was filmed in Staines-upon-Thames and London, England.
The only theatrical movie based on Sacha Baron Cohen's characters from his Da Ali G Show (2000), which was not a mockumentary.
Reportedly, filming locations for this movie in England were kept a well guarded secret, so as to keep the movie as real as possible, so the locales would appear as bleak, bland, and boring as intended by the filmmakers.
The make and model of Ali G's (Sacha Baron Cohen's) car was a yellow 1988 Renault 5 GT Turbo Série 2 (X40).