Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

The long weekend of Thanksgiving 2008 would be the one that would go down in my diary as absolutely dreadful! Not only did I get exposed to the irreparably brain damaging Zohan movie with Adam Sandler, but I also ran across this equally implausible 2 part series shown by BBC America. The show feels like it might as well have been written by Daniel Pipes. Its characters are soap opera-ish, based more on a zealot's imagination than fact. The story goes like this, two Pakistani brother and sister, born and raised in the UK, have taken two different paths. The brother, a law student, secretly joins the Mi5. His story is the first half of the series. It all starts going downhill in the second part where his sister's side is told. His sister, Nasima, a girl with strong opinions about rights and justice, participates in protests, maintains a boyfriend, and also juggles a medical residency on the side. When her best friend is jailed on flimsy grounds, it sets off a chain of events that lead to her undoing. Upon release, her friend, also of Pakistani origin, commits suicide. Rather than mourn the loss with friends and family, the tragedy convinces her to attend a Jihadi recruitment session (go figure!). Her boyfriend, a black UK born Christian, a residence at the same hospital she is in, gets infuriated with her as he is asked to leave the session because he is non-Muslim. After attending the session, she obviously feels guilty about hiding the fact she has a boyfriend from her father, and one night confesses to him (such power these sessions have over young, naive and guilt-ridden girls that they would take such a risk). Obviously, that is too much for him to bear and orders the girl and her mother to sit on the next flight to Pakistan. Financially, the whole trip would cost more than 8000 pounds, a kings ransom for a family of her financial background, especially when you think how expensive seats tend to be when you book them the day before you leave (what to talk of other logistics such as Visa, vaccinations, the type of carrier, packing, buying gifts for relatives etc). It would have been more believable if the father, told her daughter to get out of his house, and that would have been the end of it, but no wait, the plausibility gap gets wider. The viewer, is asked to suspend reality for the duration of the rest of the drama. We see mother and daughter on-board a plane to Pakistan. The Jihadi outfit's representative is also on-board. He passes her an email address to a contact in Pakistan (how the rep gets wind of her impromptu travel plans is beyond my comprehension). Once in Pakistan, Nasima resides with relatives and her mother in some unknown village, and is paraded in front of relatives, played by somewhat more believable characters. Her boyfriend somehow finds the money to buy two return tickets, not even sure of where she is, travels to Pakistan and miraculously hones in on her location amongst the THOUSANDS of villages that dot the Punjabi countryside.Unfortunately, he comes all the way only to get beaten up by her relatives as he makes his clumsy approach towards her in their courtyard. Nasima, obviously distraught runs away and joins up with the Jihadi outfit where she learns to make explosives. The outfit arranges to have a fake body shown to her relatives to have them believe she has been killed in a fire. Lo and behold, after the relatives buy the story and bury her in Britain, she is given the dead girls identity, who conveniently, seems to look like her, and is also a British passport holder (I told you). In a nutshell, she makes it back on British soil, without being identified, whatsoever, and bombs a major London landmark killing innocent women and children. The message from the movie: Don't mess around with Muslim Youth, even the ones who are seemingly successful as they will take any excuse (friends death, arranged marriage, arrest and detention, political persecution etc), as a cause for waging Jihad, and they will hit you where you least expect it! They will justify killing Western babies, one way or the other, without an ounce of humanity, because the means is less important than the end result. Mr. Pipes couldn't have done better. The British Muslims I know, though very vocal about rights (as they should be) would shudder at this portrayal. If in-fact, they appreciate this garbage, they deserve whatever they get!

I watched the entire four hours plus of Britz in one bum-numbing session. It delivers exactly what you expect from a Channel 4 mini-series – hard-hitting, topical, well-made edgy drama. Sadly it is also overwritten, more than a little preachy, and some of the acting is uneven.Episode one, Sohail's story, plays like an endlessly drawn-out episode of Spooks. It has it's moments, and Riz Ahmed is rather good, but the highlights are few and far between, and an awful lot of scenes feel padded. Part two, Nasima's story, is more compelling and at the same time more predictable. The ending is a long time coming and you may spot it a mile off, yet the motivations and attitudes set up for the character lead one to feel that the outcome doesn't ring true. I won't give away the game, but I didn't entirely buy it.This is the first of Kosminsky's celebrated contemporary dramas I've seen and while the quality of his writing and the power of the subject matter are enough to maintain interest for much of the story, it's hard not to feel he could have achieved more at half the length.

I was greatly impressed with this - it bravely raises issues around racial harmony, integration or persecution that are little examined in contemporary British media.The plot is suspenseful, if at times a little unbelievable.The acting is very good, the production and direction artful without overdoing it. Scenes on location overseas very well done.Overall a very enjoyable, and thought provoking film, which raises difficult political questions for individuals, nations and faiths to think about carefully, but the film reminds us we don't have the luxury of time to ponder these thorny issues, when so many lives hang in the balance day by day.Well done to all the production staff, and people involved in this project. Goodstuff Channel 4.

'Britz' attempts to look at the psychology of contemporary British Muslims, a worthy subject in the age of suicide bombings. Two siblings feature in this drama, and both are viewed with sympathy: a man who joins the security service, and his sister, who become a terrorist. Unfortunately, episode one, centred on the former, is plain daft. MI5 is presented much as it is in 'Spooks': beautiful people, high tech-gadgetry, and a general air of cool. It didn't convince me one iota as real, and seemed as littered with false detail like a bad sci-fi film: for example, we see implausible network analysis graphics on the screens of the agents, whose sinister form was presumably preferred to taking any real network analysis package and putting a real network through it. It's still amazing to me that in the 21st century, films try to impress by simulating imagined computer technology with mock-ups less impressive than the real thing. This point may sound like a geekish digression, but it illustrates a more fundamental truth: that the world we see is a false one, right down to the old cliché of the supposed desk officer going out to find the terrorists by himself when his bosses won't believe him.Episode two, his sister's story, isn't as silly, but I didn't find that it completely convinced me that the character, who seems rational and sarcastic, would actually end her own life. The suggestion is made that she acts out of anger rather than religious belief; but I am uncertain whether a sane, intelligent and secular human being can really take a decision to commit suicide; her experiences, although tough, do not justify the extreme nihilism of her position. The aim is undoubtedly to make us understand the mind of a bomber; but while Nasira is understandable , she loses plausibility as a result. Additionally, the drama in both episodes is often heavy-handed, rather clumsily making its points. But 'Britiz' is not rubbish. In places, its an interestingand thoughtful look at certain aspects of life in Britain and Pakistan that are often unreported. But in its efforts to make a bigger statement about a greater and more terrifying mystery, this ambitious film over-reaches itself.