Film opening in L.A. and New York
"Amreeka" movie reviews put a different spin on a film with White Castle at its core. Image from Flikr.com.
I have written a lot about why I like living in a mid-sized metro rather than a big city. Of course, I have also written a lot about movies. The one advantage to living in a big city would be that there are certain movies that are only shown in theaters in the biggest cities.
“Amreeka” movie reviews say this little film is top-notch, but unless you live in Los Angeles or New York City, you won’t get a chance to see it in theaters any time soon. Of course, if this movie makes a ton of money — more than enough for the producer to pay back the money loans it took to make it — it just might end up traveling to more theaters in more cities.
So in the hope that people from L.A. and New York City will read these “Amreeka” reviews, here are some words from Rotten Tomatoes critics that I hope will entice you to spend your money on seeing this film.
Info from Rob Nelson, Variety
“Amreeka” takes its name from the Arab word for “America,” Nelson says. The movie starts out in West Bank before the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Muna discovers that a green card will take her and 16-year-old Fadi (Melkar Muallem) away from the menacing checkpoints they deal with daily on their drive to Jerusalem. Unfortunately, when Muna and her son get to the Chicago airport, the modest seed money she had wrapped in a cookie tin is confiscated by customs agents, leaving her broke when she arrives at the suburban home of her sister Raghda (Hiam Abbass), who is married with three kids.
Muna, who has a very thick accent, tries unsuccessfully to land a bank management job like she held back home. She takes a job at White Castle and tries to keep it a secret from her sister and son, instead pretending she works at a bank. Nelson writes:
As much as the first “Harold and Kumar” movie, “Amreeka” serves the fast-food chain’s bottom line even as it pokes mild fun at greasy sliders, which Muna at one point hilariously replaces with fresh falafel burgers to the delight of her blue-haired young co-worker.
‘Amreeka’ review by Scott Foundas, L.A. Weekly:
Amreeka tells its story from the inside out, without want or need of a white protagonist to serve as the audience’s surrogate, and with real, three-dimensional characters instead of blunt ideological instruments. At the heart of Amreeka beats an irresolvable conundrum: that a nation founded by immigrants can be so narrow-mindedly conformist. …
Dabis keeps the film’s tone buoyant and light, making a fine comedy of deception out of Muna’s efforts to convince her family she actually works in a bank, and laying the groundwork for a gentle, not-quite romance between Muna and the Jewish principal of Fadi’s school. When most filmmakers want to say something important about cultural conflicts, they labor to bring tears to our eyes. Dabis, by contrast, makes us laugh at ourselves and, in turn, each other.
