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Trust Weighted
Great
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84Trust Points
Wick's Review
Summary - Great 4.0
Relaxed and delightfully deadpan, with several LOL moments, The Band’s Visit works as a perfectly pleasant comedy and as a signpost for how Israelis and Arabs can live together as neighbors. The movie uses a classic fish-out-of-water situation to achieve more than a few moments of inspired comic lunacy. Non-political, the movie can’t help but make a political statement, here that mundane coexistence can occur between Jew and Muslim. Largely a fantasy today, someday perhaps it will be widely shared on both sides.
Acting - Great 4.0
Extremely well performed by a core cast of Israeli and Palestinian actors whose seriousness draws the comedy out of the essentially ridiculous situations in which their characters find themselves, a la De Niro in Analyze This.
• Ronit Elkabetz is terrific as the no-longer-young cafe owner who nonetheless has maintained a healthy zest for life.
• Sasson Gabai instills deep humanity into his Egyptian officer’s martinet-like character.
• Saleh Bakri, a Palestinian actor making his first film appearance, displays leading man charisma as a young trumpeter looking for a good time.
Male Stars - Great 4.0
Female Stars - Great 4.0
Female Costars - Great 4.0
Male Costars - Great 4.0
Film - Great 4.0
Eran Kolirin has written and directed a terrific movie in The Band’s Visit. More than just terrific Israeli or Middle Eastern cinema, this movie easily works across cultural borders.
Direction - Great 4.0
I know funny, and this movie is damn funny.Dialogue - Perfect 5.0
Terrific concept and script by auteur Eran Kolirin. Placing formal Egyptian military officers - always dragging their roller-board suitcases, the quintessential modern accoutrement - in a dusty outpost of a relentlessly informal Israel makes for high comedy. Several scenes are really, really funny, none more inspired than a stage managed seduction at the roller rink (more about this in the Sex commentary below).Music - Great 4.0
Chet Baker ultimately brings the parties together, showing yet again the indispensable role that America plays in the Middle East. ;-)Visuals - Great 4.0
The flat, dusty and architecturally dreary landscape perfectly captures the early socialist development of the State of Israel.Edge - Tame 1.3
This movie contains perhaps the funniest seduction scene in years, when a debonair Egyptian serves as Cyrano de Bergerac for a young Israeli guy and his long suffering date. The fact that the scene ends with just a sweet kiss makes it a movie classic of the old school variety.
Sex Titillating 1.6
Violence Gentle 1.0
Rudeness Polite 1.3
Reality - Glib 1.3
Would an Egyptian Army band come to Israel for a concert? I don’t know, but assume not. So the movie is glib not only with its comic set-ups, but with its fantasy of prosaic neighborliness.