Ralph's Movie Reviews: AMREEKA

Thursday, November 12, 2009

AMREEKA

Drama
Sometimes in Arabic with English subtitles

F.Y.I.
The Diversity Immigrant Visa program is a United States congressionally-mandated lottery for obtaining a United States Permanent Resident Card. It is also known as the Green Card Lottery. The lottery is administered on an annual basis by the Department of State to provide for a new class of immigrants known as "diversity immigrants". The Act makes available 50,000 permanent resident visas annually to persons from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States.

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Nisreen Faour: Muna, a single mother
Melkar Muallem: her 16-year-old son Fadi
Hiam Abbass: Muna’s older sister Raghda
Yussef Abu-Warda: her physician husband
Joseph Ziegler: Mr. Novatski, School Principal
Alia Shawkat: Fadi’s cousin Salma
Selena Haddad: Fadi’s younger cousin Lamis
Jenna Kawar: her older sister Rana

REVIEW
Life for Palestinians living in the Israeli-occupied West Bank is difficult so given the opportunity to improve their lot, relocating to America seems like a good option. However there are problems of a different sort for any new immigrant as this small-budget film brings to mind. Some of which are humorous, but others much more serious.

With some fine acting and crisp editing this is an enjoyable outing.

CLASSIFICATION

for brief drug use and some language.

P.S.
Amreeka is the Arabic word for America.

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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.