Ralph's Movie Reviews: THE BAND’S VISIT

Saturday, March 8, 2008

THE BAND’S VISIT

Drama
Mostly in Hebrew and Arabic with English subtitles

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Sasson Gabai: the band’s leader Lt.-Col. Tawfiq Zacharya
Khalifa Natour: clarinetist and wannabe conductor Simon
Saleh Bakri: violinist and the band’s newest member Khaled
Ronit Elkabetz: Dina, proprietor of the town's only café
Rubi Moscovich: her friend Itzik
Shlomi Avraham: their friend Papi

REVIEW
A very low-key simple story about a group of people who spend one evening with strangers in a foreign country. This is not a big production number with casts of thousands and budgets of millions. Instead it is very laid back, slow paced film relying upon some really good acting and several unexpected humorous moments to propel it forward. Not that very much happens mind you but it is a pleasant experience to sit back and watch what’s going on.

CLASSIFICATION

for brief strong language (one solitary f-word: that’s it!)

P.S.
Petah Tikva (“Doorway to Hope” in Hebrew) is a city of 175,000 in the center district of Israel north-east of Tel Aviv. It sounds very much like Bet Hatikva (“House of Hope” in Hebrew).

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my ratings system

I've always thought that telling too much about a movie or warning someone about a "twist" at the end deprives the person the pleasure of seeing it as it unfolds, so I don’t do it. You may not always agree with my rating of course, but at least it is an unbiased opinion unlike some of the full time professional reviewers who are on the studio’s payroll.

A few movies you won’t see any review from me:

Scary movies: I’m the world’s biggest chicken and just hate getting the crap scared out of me. I can handle an unexpected door slam, that kind of thing, but a movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat…not for me. Sorry.
Movies geared to the young teen and pre-teen crowd with dialog comprising mostly of crude remarks, awful jokes and lots of rude, socially unacceptable body noises. "The Spy that Shagged Me" comes to mind. (I wonder if the kids know what the British verb to shag someone really means? They probably do; I bet you it’s the parents who haven’t a clue).
Sometimes Hollywood gets on a roll and they produce a series of movies that are all very much alike. For example movies about the CIA were very popular and so we had The Bourne Identity and Bad Company and The Sum of All Fears. They all had the same basic theme and it becomes repetitive. I will see some, but not all of them.

FYI this is my rating system:

0 stars = Terrible: so bad it’s not worth talking about; in fact, I’d pay you not to go
= Lousy: I actually got up and walked out before the end it was just that bad (no kidding)
= Not so good: thought about walking out but hung in just in case it got better (but it didn’t)
= A so-so good movie: I enjoyed it somewhat but wasn’t all that crazy about it
= A really good movie: I recommend seeing it
= An excellent movie you just got to see! I suggest you put it on your "To Do List" it’s that good.

some favourite websites

For those into it, Nitpickers at

has more movie mistakes than you could ever imagine. My contributions can be seen if you check out the Nitpickers Registry and click on the link Nitpickers Listed by Nitpicker Number, select the group 45,401 - 45,500 and drill down to number 45411. Although I have 56 nitpicks to my credit, some have almost 2,000. You wonder sometimes where they find the time to do it.