The Infidel 2010 by AverageMansReviews

The Infidel 2010 by AverageMansReviews

Review Time

Warning: there is racism/burning/medical/reference to homosexuality. Because of the world will now living in I should also point out that this script has been written by David Baddiel a British Jewish person/and he is somewhere in this film about as well; yes I looked at the casting listing and we have Djalili he is a British Muslim so all I am trying to politely indicate is that they have their bases covered for the content in this film.

I am so trying not to get cancelled: basically; we meet  Mahmud Nasir/other name [Omid Djalili:] that is going through a difficult time in his life as his mother has just passed on, he discovers that he is adopted which makes him partly Jewish; before he can meet his electrical father he has to learn the Jewish faith; before time runs out.

Generally speaking: the framework and pacing of this 105 minutes film is firstly straightforward as in it knows what it is designed to do and stick to it, but it is a little bit slow.

Comedy; well I would like to refer back to the fact that the writer and our lead performer can individually yet combined effort can get away with this as I can't as I am firstly a non-practising Christian and secondly Caucasian. But having said that; having a Muslim character trying to learn how to be Jewish has comical substance as our lead character tries to learn how to speak Jewish and he keeps getting it wrong in a sequence or/and I am not trying to be a racist or racial here but if you have been following Mr. Djalili long enough as in his stand-up comedy work, you would know by now at one point or another in his routines; he does dancing; so I can reassure you he does some dancing in this film and as I suspected there is an inside joke in this project; our lead character is a Tottenham Hotspur football/soccer supporter, but on some research, because I couldn't remember if it was Arsenal or Chelsea he supported; it is Chelsea he supports so there is no way he would wear a Tottenham Hotspur emblem/symbol or anything to do with this club [for those outside of the UK and football/soccer, these are all London based clubs, so there is rivalry here and yes I should quickly point out there are so many other London based clubs; now if there are some people out there saying okay like who? Firstly I am a football/soccer supporter so this question is relatively easy; but off the top my head; you have Crystal Palace, West Ham United Queen's Park Rangers and Charlton Athletic; even though I said it was relatively easy I just had to do some research on Charlton Athletic; but I digress.] The last thing I could say about the comedy is; it is very British as it uses this sometimes awkward situation based presentation.

Art; the wardrobe and/or the locations for the wedding; this is a wash of colour and vibrancy.

Character developments and performances; they are reliably good versions of what they are meant to be and their performances reflect that also, but it is down to Djalili's performance that really is very much the driving force behind this project, without him this film would have sunk, you need someone with his enthusiasm to make this kind of film work.

This film receives: 6/10, this film is good; in hindsight I decided to give this project one more mark back, because even though the framework and pacing and towards the later stages this film does somewhat hit the wall and it never feels like it gets back to where it was, I have to give it another mark based on the cast and/or Djalili and just after that title of this film there is one extra scene. This film also has some awards accredited to it as well; 1 Winner Torino Film Festival 2010 Jury Prize Best Actor Omid Djalili and 2 Nominees that includes from this ceremony/event Prize of the City of Torino Best Feature Film Josh Appignanesi and Evening Standard British Film Awards 2011 Peter Sellers Award for Comedy Omid Djalili