billcr12
Mahmud Nasir is a married father, a laid back Muslim who listens to rock music and a guy enjoys an occasional drink whose son Rashid is about to marry Uzma, the daughter of a Muslim cleric who must approve of the family. Mahmud agrees to act devout to please his son.Trouble starts when Mahmud cleans out his deceased mother's house and discovers that he was adopted. Even more shocking, his real name is Solly Shimshillewitz. He has a bad relationship with his neighbor, Lenny Goldberg, and when accused of being anti-Semitic, slips out his real identity. This leads to his biological father in a nursing home. When he attempts to visit, he is stopped by a rabbi, who says the shock would kill him. He asks Lenny to teach him to be Jewish. He learns to dance and to speak some Yiddish. He goes back to the nursing home but fails the rabbi's test to enter the room.Back at home, Mahmud meets his son's fiancé's family, including the radical Muslim father who is impressed with the video circulating of Mahmud burning a yarmulke in public. The police show up to subdue a crowd of angry Muslims and Jews and his family leave him, as does his partner at work. His father dies and he uncovers a secret regarding a Muslim leader which is both a surprise and provides a good ending to The Infidel. It is both funny and delivers a good message at the same time; can't we all just get along.
Nick P
I had high hopes for this film as I thought it would be a great clash of cultures comedy, especially with Omid Jalali as the star. Regrettably, to my disappointment it fell very flat. The film started off quite well and was humorous, but it soon became dry and felt like an old fashioned TV sketch. Hence, the camera was just filming dry witty dialogue exchanges of the same thing over and over again with limited change in camera angle, which made it boring.Despite being fiction, the set up of the characters depicted were confusing and consequently hard to believe. Omid Jalali is supposed to be a London born Pakistani, despite being adopted from Jewish descent from a very young age. However, any Islamic references from Omid sounded very Arabic/middle eastern, which contrasted greatly with his family who were clearly British Pakistani and felt like they were non-Londoners particularly with the Northern Burke friend. Consequently, I wasn't sure if I was in Bradford or London. Furthermore, I found it hugely Ironic that the fanatic Egyptian cleric sounded heavily Israeli!!! It was even more ironic that he was suppose to be Egyptian but had a daughter and wife that looked clearly Pakistani/Indian rather than Egyptian! Nothing wrong with make believe but all of it didn't gel and soured the movie.If Omid Jalali's family was set up as a London Arabic/Persian family, I think this would have had a huge positive difference to the film by making it feel more real and funny! Mainly because this is what Omid knows and he could have exploited a lot of the day to day humour without having to make spoofed Jewish/Muslim references all the time that soon got dull. The film also conveyed the impression that all Muslims were anti-Jewish and all Jewish people were anti-Muslim just because of the Israeli – Palestinian conflict. Consequently, I thought this was very two dimensional and unrealistic and it put me off the film. Some positive points, the climax was quite entertaining and the first 10 minutes were good to watch. It also had a nice dramatic undertone as Omid Jalali goes on his quest for his roots. There were also humorous moments throughout, but they would only earn a smirk rather than laughter. Overall, this could have been such a great film if it was done in a better way and I think it's poor performance at the box office reflects that. However, If you have a British Pakistani background, I'd suggest watching the film as you may enjoy it as it seem's more tailored for a British Pakistani audience. If you're easy going and enjoy dry British or ethnic humour you may also enjoy it. However, if you're having a night in and you want a good comedy to enjoy, avoid this and pick up something like "Knocked Up" for guaranteed entertainment.
tieman64
"Attitudes must change before behaviour? Research points toward the opposite. Behaviour changes first, because of new laws or other interventions; individuals then modify their ideas to fit their new acts." - Thomas Pettigrew Directed by Josh Appignanesi, "The Infidel" stars British-Iranian stand-up comic Omid Djalili as a man who was raised in a Muslim household but undergoes an identity crisis following the realisation that he was once adopted and is actually Jewish. Aiming to reconcile East/West, Islamic/Judaeo-Christian tensions, it's one of those "let's all get along", "we are all the same", "we are all equal" comedies, but is mostly useless, as it ignores the systemic, structural and class based causes of hate, intolerance and racism (Djalili's stand-up comedy likewise mostly reinforces rather than challenges racial stereotypes). Look at history, and it's clear that it is largely wealth polarisation which leads to social breakdown, hate-mongering and the rise of authoritarian governments, which are either promoted by the ruling class to contain civil unrest amongst the least wealthy or promoted by the least wealthy to oppose the muscle of the privileged (often foreign countries or interests). The kind of racism we see directed toward Jews, Arabs and Persians has less to do with religion and customs, than land, money and capitalism. Meanwhile, in the West, racism is wholly institutionalised, and takes on a more benign image, in the form of ceaseless uncontested wars, austerity measures, and the scapegoating of the unemployed, immigrants, impoverished etc. Here code words, euphemisms and innuendo are used to veil the racist message, but the aim is always the same: the diversion of blame and anger - anger about bad housing, no housing, war, boring work, no work, bad wages, pensions, conditions, job insecurity, no future, and so on - toward the Other, be he at home or abroad. Instead of attacking the real causes of these (and other) problems, people are encouraged to direct their anger against people who face similar problems.But the most important factor in reinvigorating a whole new round of global racism is the resurgence of a certain brand of Reagan-Bush conservatism (or neoliberalism), whose hallmark was the reinstatement of laissez-faire economic policies and rhetoric. A "free market", economic "experts" argued, necessarily produced inequality; but by allowing unhindered market forces to select the economically fittest and to weed out the unfit, the economy would become healthy again. The wealth of those who survived and prospered in the harsh new climate would ultimately benefit the less fortunate, through a "trickle-down" effect which was supposed to create millions of new high-paying jobs. All this would be accomplished by deregulating business, reducing taxes on the wealthy, and dismantling or drastically cutting back federal programmes designed to promote social equality, fairness, and compassion. In actuality, of course, the opposite happened, with wealth flooding upwards, the middle class being destroyed, the creation of low-paying, dead-end jobs, global debt exponentially increasing, money exponentially losing its value, and markets needing to be constantly expanded, often via wars, such that a continual influx of people might be sucked into the base of the system to support it. What you now have is a Global Ponzi scheme, which must spread and spread and absorb more and more people to stay afloat. Meanwhile, the ruling class sees unprecedented gains in wealth.Though forecast centuries ago, isolated from the margins of capitalism, your typical Westerner couldn't see this coming. He believed himself to be a mighty free agent, whose wealth was the product of his labour, his actions, rather than a case of infinite regression – as profits always outpace pay - where there is always someone below you labouring harder for less, and harder for less, to support you. The system doesn't "naturally" cause upward mobility, it simply favours those who entered first, and broadens its base so more and more are sucked in at the lower levels. Beyond this, the Reaganite doctrine of inequality gave the official seal of approval to ideas of racial superiority that right-wing extremists had used for years to rationalise the exploitation of minorities. If the economic gap between whites and non-whites was growing, if most non-whites live below the poverty line - well, that just proved that there was a racial component in the Social-Darwinian selection process, showing that minorities "deserved" their poverty and lower social status because they were "less fit." The winners on the income scale are given a reason for self-satisfaction. Their gains are due to personal merit, the application of high intelligence, and the smiles of fortune. Those on the loosing side are guilty of sloth, self-indulgence, and whining. Perhaps they have bad culture, or bad genes. The logical corollary of this is that whites who are "less fit" also deserve their poverty. In truth, both the wealthy and the poor have little free agency when it comes to their position.But of course much of the racism directed toward (and experienced within) the Middle East today stems from raw Western Power. It's a feedback loop, the West sanctioning, blockading, terrorising, bombing, covertly assassinating and manipulating the "East" - a kind of full spectrum racism - in order to retain its own privilege and social advantage, which of course leads to blow-back from the East, a violent reaction that is often sought as it justifies the West's own further violence. Racism is more than an ideology, a belief system or a negative attitude towards others arising out of prejudice. If that alone were the case, then racism would be "reduced to something which takes place inside human heads", and the implicit presupposition here is that a change of attitude which will put an end to racial oppression can be brought about by dialogue, by an ethical appeal for a change of mentality. But such an understanding ignores the real factor behind racism (as well as sexism): Power (ie the capacity to act). 4/10 - Has nothing to do with anything. Worth one viewing.
