Highly Overrated But Still Good
... View MoreGood films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.
... View MoreThe film may be flawed, but its message is not.
... View MoreOne of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.
... View MoreI watched this back when it came out on DVD and only vaguely remembered it until watching it again now on Tubi.It reminds me of Sleeper Cell and Homeland which are two awesome shows.It twists and turns and has great acting.Well worth the time.
... View MoreAs a young child living in Yemen "Samir Horn" (Don Cheadle) experiences the death of his father in a car bomb planted by terrorists. Afterward his mother takes him to America where he grows up and eventually joins the army as a demolitions expert. After separating from the army he begins to sell explosive detonators to the highest bidder which eventually leads him to a Muslim terrorist movement in Sudan. Unfortunately, while a meeting is taking place he is arrested and sent to a prison and upon his escape joins a terrorist movement which has use for his skills. At any rate, rather than disclose the rest of the story and risk ruining the film for those who haven't seen it I will just that that this was a pretty good action film with some drama and suspense thrown in for good measure. I especially liked the performance of Don Cheadle who I thought played the part to near perfection. Above average.
... View MoreThis is a really well researched script whose major quality is to empathise with the enemy, something that must have been quite impossible to picture for narrow-minded executives back in 2002. Unfortunately after 2008 we know it all, we have learnt all the various aspects, technical, sociological and political, of Jihad terrorism. The script does bring together all the elements pretty well, with an interesting lead, but that is not enough.First there is a rhythm issue. The story flows but there is no change in rhythm when we switch to - potentially - suspenseful or high-octane action scenes. This is all very low-key, in line with the main character (Don Cheadle also produced so it may be a reason here why main character and direction are somewhat overlapping) and doesn't help the movie to graduate into another dimension. Then, natural consequence of a loose rhythm, the audience is guessing ahead and the twists - and climax - are totally dissolved into the flow. In the end there is a strange feel that is not satisfactory about the blend of optimistic and pessimistic elements in the story. And really it is overly optimistic plot elements and totally downplayed pessimistic elements (well, they mostly rest on Don Cheadle's shoulders).I would recommend this movie for its detailed and clever script, and the sharp execution (kudos to the guys for shooting this in 48 days). Could have been sharper though, and that would have meant a totally different angle for the lead with, hem, less screen time, and relegating the Jihad characters in the dark background (too much visual empathy is counter-productive, empathy is perfectly sufficient thru Samir). Nice try, better vision next time.
... View MoreSometimes good is bad and bad is good. Or put more simply: everything is just a shade of grey. What kind of shade just depends on the viewer, the perspective. Steve Martin (yes, the comedian Steve Martin) co-wrote a solid modern day spy saga that is fortunately neither black nor white. The only thing this movie lacks is emotion. By trying too hard to get the message across, director Jeffrey Nachmanoff has lost eye on the need for viewers to be able to identify with the characters and has thus made it harder to empathize with persons and causes. You will, but only in the second half of the movie. Still, the storyline is solid. And the acting is more than that. Don Cheadle is (again) magnificent and so is Saïd Taghmaoui. This is not an action movie, but a thinking man's movie. And a good one too.
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