petrelet The original title of this review called it an "existential parable" but that would really be too much like putting the spoiler in the subject line. I don't mean that this seems to have an existential viewpoint. I mean that the writer/director, Ramin Bahrani, gave an interview in which he said that he was inspired by how the cart vendors of New York reminded him of the myth of Sisyphus. So there are no mysteries here. We see it too, as we see Ahmad Razvi push this huge heavy coffee- and-bagel cart the size of a minivan up and down the streets before down. The cart seems larger and heavier and more impossible to manage each time we see it. The sign on the cart always says the same thing: "Have a Nice Day." This sign is meant to be read by the customers, I suppose, not by the vendor.Ahmad Razvi is the actor, but the character is also named Ahmad, and in fact Razvi was not an actor, he was a guy Bahrani met who until recently had been pushing these carts around himself. Ahmad (the character) had a life in Pakistan as a singer. He no longer has it. In New York he had a wife and son. We see one happy moment in flashback. Now his wife is dead, and his son is living with his in- laws; his mother-in-law hates him and blames him for everything. He meets a successful Pakistani guy who might be helpful to him, and a young woman from Spain running a news shack who kind of likes him, it seems. But it's not wise to get too attached to anything in the world of Sisyphus. Not even the stone, er, cart.Well, now you sort of know the plot, if that's the term. And, putting it down like this, it might seem rather poignant, not to say depressing. And I can't say this movie is for everyone at any time. Honestly, more than once I was really hoping to see some little providential cliché that would solve Ahmad's problems, but the film never took that kind of easy pity on us.But on the other hand if your heart is open to it you come away from it with a feeling of having been washed free of attachment by a drenching rain. What, you want a movie with triumphs in it? There are no triumphs. We all lose everything ultimately. We don't take anything with us. The boulder always rolls back down over us sooner or later.So what choice do we have, except how we are going to conduct ourselves? After everything has happened to you that can happen, suppose that a guy comes up to you and asks for a coffee and a bagel. Will you give him good service? Will you smile at him from your heart? Will you wish him a nice day? Without irony, without envy? I think this is the question the film asks us. If you can do that, isn't that a triumph? Mightn't this actually be inspiring? Isn't this the way we can actually spit in Sightblinder's eye on the last day (to borrow from Robert Jordan)? That's what I thought, anyway.

PaulyC Every night, before New York City wakens, Ahmad pushes his coffee and donut cart to it's usual spot on the street corner. As the movie moves along, we find out that Ahmad was a bit of a rock star in Pakistan. His wife is dead and his in-laws won't let him see his son. Did Ahmad come to America to pursue a relationship with his son? The answer is never clear. He meets a pretty vendor up the street but can't bring himself to have a relationship with her. It is slow moving but in a good way as I would describe it as a "slice of life" kind of movie. The actual making of the movie involved using a concealed camera for a lot of shots including a scene where Ahmad sells bootlegged porn DVD's to two guys. These two guys were not actors and didn't even know they were going to be in the movie. It was shot in less than three weeks on a small budget. This is a pretty decent film for it's atmosphere and character development but is clearly not for everybody. A true example of low budget guerrilla film-making.

runamokprods Slight, simple, but genuinely moving, and astoundingly beautiful visually for a ultra low budget film shot in 3 weeks on the streets of New York. A Pakistani immigrant tries to make a living selling bagels and coffee from a little stand he pushes around and dreams of buying. That's really the whole story. But subtly, fragment by fragment, we get glimpses into his life, his back-story, etc. It's life in bits and pieces adding up to a greater, much more powerful whole than the sum of it's parts would suggest. A lovely complex look at the kind of un-glamorous character we too rarely see in our films.

kuchta-951-756726 The Film shows the boring life of the man push cart. He has no hope of changing his life. It is the same every day, repeating the same routine. He is unable to sort out his personal life because of his past. If something happens it ends as a disaster. The viewer of this movie is also waiting that something happens and that is the only suspense. The film is a bit boring. I suppose that is what the film director intends to convey. Viewing the movie is as boring as the life of Ahmad (the man push cart). The film ends as uneventful as it begins. The viewer (if he sees the film to the end) will think that he is lucky that his life ids different. I cannot recommend the film.