CINEMA: The Infidel
Making a religious comedy is a pretty loveless task – even if you manage to create a cracking good movie (Life of Brian for instance) you know you’re going to offend someone somewhere no matter how careful you are.
The Infidel, written by David Baddiel, doesn’t even try to be careful, but that’s not really the offensive thing about it, what offends is it’s just not funny.
Omid Djalili stars as Mahmud, a non-practicing Muslim whose life gets distinctly complicated when he discovers he was adopted as a baby and his birth father was actually Jewish. With all he’s ever taken for granted about himself turned upside down a rather confused Mahmud enlists the help of Jewish cabbie Lenny (Richard Schiff) in order to get in touch with his Jewish side.
But having a huge identity crisis is the least of Mahmud’s worries; his son Rashid (Amit Shah) is engaged to the lovely Uzma (Soraya Radford) and her uncle just happens to be a fanatical Muslim cleric (Igal Naor) who would disapprove of Mahmud’s non-Muslim ways and have a fit if he found out he actually wasn’t Muslim at all.
The film starts out promisingly enough with a light touch, not taking itself too seriously, but then it gets bogged down in really stereotypical scenes (including a bar mitzvah) that kind of rub up against each other without pushing the story forwards.
It’s all a bit predictable with Omid Djalili managing the shouty bits OK but otherwise being rather out-acted by Richard Schiff, while the denouement is weak and over signposted.
Author: Dee Pilgrim
Dee always knew she wanted to make her living from writing and so trained as a journalist before working for a variety of music and women’s titles including Sounds, Company, Cosmopolitan, Ms London, New Woman, and Girl About Town. After going freelance she concentrated on celebrity interviews and film, theatre, music and restaurant reviews. Her love of film goes back to her very first cinema experience at the age of five when her mother took her to see Bambi. She cried. At one time she was the Film Editor for NOW magazine and also the secretary for the film section of the Critics’ Circle and the celebrity coordinator for its annual film awards’ event. She has written a number of books for teenagers through Trotman Publishing, including five Real Life Guides to vocational careers (including Carpentry, Plumbing and Catering), and also three books on Real Life Issues (Money, Bereavement and Self Harm). Her favourite film is still Bladerunner.
Read more posts by Dee Pilgrim
Leave a comment