Tuesday, May 4, 2010

RAVE - The Infidel

If you liked East is East, or Bend It Like Beckham, you'll love The Infidel.

Omid Djalili, a British Iranian comic, plays Mahmud Nasir, a relaxed Muslim living in East London with his family. His wife is "modern", in that she wears western clothes and no veil. His 4 year old daughter giggles and runs around the house with a plastic scimitar shouting "death to all infidels". His son is engaged to a Pakistani girl, whose fire-breathing hate cleric father-in-law demands that he meet with her in-laws-to-be so that he can "bless" the partnership.

Cleaning up his recently-deceased mother's house Mahmud finds his birth certificate that - shock, horror! - shows he is Jewish, and adopted by Muslims when he was a baby.

What follows, as Mahmud juggles his new-found Jewishness with his need to impress his son's future father-in-law is a hoot.

Best line: while Mahmud bounces his dilemma off a fellow min-cab driver, who happens to be Jewish, and explains that despite being raised as a Muslim he was born of Jewish parents, and given the name Solly Shimshillewitz. His confidant replies: "They may as well have called you Jew Jew-Jew-Jew".

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