Thursday, May 9, 2013

RAVE - The Reluctant Fundamentalist

This movie was a real find. Not that it was hidden anywhere, but you'll have to look for it at smaller theaters rather than your local blockbuster-wielding multiplexes - which will all be playing Iron Man 3, so they're worth avoiding like the plague anyhow.

This is about a Pakistani guy who graduates from an ivy-league university and joins a prestigious Wall Street firm that values, then winds down companies on behalf of its hedge fund investors.

After focusing for a couple of years on the fundamentals that make their corporate valuations tick, and then experiencing first hand how the US authorities treated "suspicious" foreigners after 9/11, he returns home to his sister's wedding in Pakistan.

There he becomes embroiled in fundamentalist circles of another kind, and a tense and rewarding story ensues.

It doesn't do anything stupid, like painting terrorists as persecuted individuals just looking looking to protect their rights, but nevertheless it does cover a well-trodden path from a different perspective than most films on similar subjects.

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