Fatwa - Guerra Declarada

<< some may consider a few things below spoilers, but i do not. they have no impact on the storyline and give nothing away >>

this film was the worst i have seen in quite some time. the first 3/4 of the film have nothing at all to do with the storyline and just consist of drawn out character development for characters i care less than nothing about. the last 1/4 had what looked like the start of a promising thriller in it, but then it all just fell apart. I'm trying hard not to give anything away for those who do wish to see it, but the ending makes no sense in several different ways and there is a very high level of politicking going on here.

its hard to tell whether those who made the film wanted to snipe at the middle east or the Americans, because both will be insulted after seeing this film. our 'terrorist' has rather serious mental health problems, which seems to suggest that he has no rational justification for the acts he planned to carry out. near the end we are given his reasoning but the fact that a Libyan (the only non American in sight) is mentally disturbed and a terrorist is deeply insulting. as for the Americans, well the film opens with the thickest piece of hypocrisy I've ever seen, george bush making a speech. even those who are bush supporters would have to admit that this speech and the propaganda that is spouted by laurens character during the film is at least as true (if not more true) if you replace words like 'terrorist' and 'muslim' with 'soldier' and 'american' or 'christian'.

i fail to see what point, if any, this film was trying to get across to the viewer. its overuse of tertiary characters, the inexplicable decisions made by them, the lack of any drive in the narrative (if you can call it that), and that mentioned above makes this a truly shameful waste of time and money for all those involved and any who choose to see it. i rate this film 0/10, which is rare, because i see no redeeming features in it whatsoever. some, however, may enjoy the sex scenes so for those only wanting to see that, i give it 3/10.

I have no doubt the guys who made this film had some semblance of creating a complex character study of the post 9/11 political world, but somebody prodded them that drug use by teen hotties and sado-masochistic sex thrown in for good measure might help things along. Everyone in this film is fairly loathsome, with the Muslim extremist possibly coming off as the most sympathetic of the ensemble until the end. There is nothing special about the performances, mostly by b-movie actors. Lauren Holly as a hard line Republican US Senator maybe the most ridiculous bit of casting since Denise Richards was made a nuclear scientist in "The World Is Not Enough".

a Waste of a Movie. The actors are awful and the Quality of the color looks like they recorded the film on a camera that cost $189.00. I tried to submit this review with 2 lines because those 2 lines told everything i needed to say about this movie but this web form needs 10 lines of text in my review. Don't rent this movie. It's so bad, oh my god. The terrorist has a barbed wire cage in his basement for some reason. the main character has sex all the time. My wife said she'll let me watch star-gate instead of this movie. That means it must be very bad. Did I say don't rent this movie?, Why did I rent this movie?, I don't know.

OK...I think I missed something here. Not to mention I did like the ending on this at all. I watched this a least three time already and is still lost. Was Roger supposed to be some kind of under cover terrorist driving around in that cab? OMG...did I misinterpret this film or what. I keep watching and watching and I'm still lost. The ending could have been better. I'm still looking for more. However i did read the synopsis on this and it was nothing like I thought it would be. Overall there may have been some good shots here but I was very disappointed. And if I had wasted my money to go see this in the movies, I'd asked for a refund...No,no,no better yet... I would've demanded a refund. You disappointed me in this one Guenveur.

Grumble

In some aspects, this film resembles Crash (the 2006 Oscar winner, that is), both multi-threaded stories facilitating action and suspense to narrate the diversity and convergence of human nature. In other aspects however, Fatwa sets itself apart from the Paul Haggis masterpiece by deliberately keeping many ends loose and concentrate itself on the essentials only.

This minimalistic approach regarding what to tell and what not produces a quite distinctive taste. If Crash were a giant puzzle whose numerous pieces are put together one after another, resulting in a picture which, although just a window to the whole landscape, is in itself round and complete. Fatwa on the other hand would be more of a medium sized puzzle whose pieces are incomplete to start with from the beginning, but nonetheless are being put together despite of the shortage. As the pieces fall into place, however, the ones that have been left out become more and more irrelevant. In the end, a fragmented picture is presented which manages to show an astonishing whole view of the subject it is set to depict.

So, when you watch this film and get the feeling there are too many circumstances you don't understand, please relax and know it's the way it's supposed to be. Instead, pay more attention to what you do understand, and let not your deductions, but your emotional impressions lead you. In retrospect you may find out that the fuzziness of all those circumstances are not only intended, but actually symbolic and therefore essential to the statement of this film: Despiete the different circumstances surrounding us, we all still share the basic human nature. In fact, the complexity of the world is no more than the diverse and yet convergent manifestation of this shared human nature of ours.

The acting of this film is quite impressive. Due to the minimalistic story telling which leaves all characters practically without a personal history or background, it's definitely very difficult for the actors to display the depth of those characters. Considering that, they have all managed to get the job done rather well. Especially Angus Macfadyen shows a supreme performance.

Fatwa is most certainly a film worth watching. You may not get it at first, but eventually you will, I hope.