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The Reluctant Infidel (DVD)
Year: 2010
Rating: MA
Director: Josh Appignanesi
Cast: Omid Djalili, Matt Lucas, Yigal Naor, Archie Panjabi, Richard Schiff
Release Date: February 03, 2012
Distributor: Paramount
The Film: 2.5
FILMINK rates DVDs and Blu-rays out of 5“...the film trades in sitcom cliché...”
A British comedy in which a Muslim (Omar Djalili) discovers that his birth parents were Jewish, The Reluctant Infidel's writer David Baddiel and director Josh Appignanesi have a brilliant conceit for a modern satire.
Perhaps they are suggesting the evils of religious intolerance in lieu of the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Or maybe they are arguing that some of the practices of modern religion are too far removed from the realities of modern Jews and Muslims.
Unfortunately, although the stand-up and author Badiel's screenplay is not entirely devoid of wit (a fundamentalist's assertion that "moderation is a good thing in moderation" is a high point), the film trades in sitcom cliché rather than the darker, rapid satire of, say, Chris Morris' recent Four Lions.
In Badiel's screenplay, characters say the word "Jew" a lot, which substitutes for any psychological insight into any of its characters, as the film too often settles for the laziest of pop-cultural references from Friends to Seinfeld.
Performances are mixed. Archie Panjabi (The Good Wife) is wasted as a sitcom wife who - of course - confuses her husband's growing disappearances with infidelity, whilst Djalili never entirely looks comfortable with his difficult role. However, Schiff - The West Wing star perhaps relieved to be playing anything other than obnoxious bureaucrats in heart-tuggers I Am Sam and Martian Child - overcomes clunky dialogue and relaxes into his role nicely, suggesting a credibility to his character not entirely earned by the writing.
