Omar (***1/2)

One thing that occurred to me when watching this was that, while I’ve seen plenty of Israeli films that have nothing to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it’s hard to imagine a film about Palestinians that is not also, in some aspect, about the Israeli occupation. Omar (Adam Bakri) has to climb the giant separation wall that runs through the West Bank just to visit his girlfriend Nadia (Leem Lubany), a college student. In another scene, he is stopped and beaten by the Israeli security forces. The film certainly is from Palestinian perspective. But it would be a mistake to see it primarily as an anti-occupation film, even if its main characters, Omar and his two best friends, are involved in an anti-Israel plot. Instead, the film is about conflicting loyalties and self-preservation.

It’s better not to know much about what happens, but it involves the Israeli security forces trying to enlist Omar’s aid in capturing his friend. Omar doesn’t want to do this, but if he doesn’t he may never see Nadia again, let alone marry her as he wishes. Omar is the work of Hany Abu-Assad (Paradise Now), who gets strong perfromances from a cast of newcomers.
Despite the somewhat drab setting, the film is picturesque, with its shots of the giant wall and chase sequences showcasing narrow alleys; some of the most memorable shots in the film are those in which Omar looks in over the fence at the school his girlfriend attends, wondering whether he can trust her. It is such personal questions, not political ones, that dominate this film, right up to the shocker of an ending.

IMDb link

viewed 2/27/14 9:40 pm at Ritz Bourse and posted 3/5/14

Rampart (***)

A few more movies like this and the LAPD might get a bad reputation. Woody Harrelson’s character, Dave Brown, instantly dislikable yet, by the end, a bit pitiable, is the unclean cop in a film that starts out seeming something like Training Day. As Brown, nicknamed “date rape,” but not for the reason you think, instructs his own trainee on the ways of controlling “wetbacks” and other riff raff, she asks if he isn’t afraid of getting a “128” (sanction for misbehavior). “Illegal is just a sick bird,” he replies. But the recruit moves on, and the Brown’s misconduct catches up the modern way, by being caught on video. Arrogant charm is enough to get a lawyer (Robin Wright) into his bed, but seems less likely to win over Internal Affairs. A retired cop buddy (Ned Beatty) may or may not be helping. And his two exes—sisters—and two daughters (one by each sister) are losing patience with him. (The high school-age daughter, especially.)

Unlike most cop films, this is very much a character study, not an action thriller. The director is Oren Moverman, who previously directed Harrelson in The Messenger, but the low-key realism, and no doubt much of the gritty, witty dialogue comes partly by way of cowriter James Ellroy. Ellroy wrote the book on corrupt Los Angeles cops, several in fact; one was L.A. Confidential. (Rampart is an L.A. police division involved in a real misconduct scandal in the late 1990s, but this story is narrowly focused.)  Wisely, the movie doesn’t drift into obvious moralizing like Training Day. There’s no Ethan Hawke character to serve as audience surrogate. Brown’s family serves some of the same function, but mostly this is about a man who has lived by his own rules slowly coming to grips with the cost. By the end, that theme has been reiterated to the point of near redundancy. Still, Moverman is not heavy handed, and the movie stops before depicting an ending that is by then, broadly obvious.

IMDb link

viewed at Ritz Bourse 2/16/12 7:30 pm [PFS screening] and reviewed 2/16/12