In Mira Nair's The Reluctant Fundamentalist, the fundamentalist of the title is Changez (Riz Ahmed), a young Pakistani man who moves to the U.S. to study business at Princeton. He eventually realizes the American dream—a Wall Street job, money, an attractive girlfriend (Kate Hudson)—but a variety of factors, among them America's prejudicial attitudes toward the Middle East post-9/11 and his feelings of responsibility to his family and home country, eventually drive him to possibly radical political views.It's a movie that might have worked had Nair made it five years ago. (Coincidentally, the novel upon which it is based came out in 2007.) We've had almost 12 years since 9/11 to absorb the fact that terrorism isn't as cut-and-dried as it appeared in the aftermath of that terrorist attack, so Nair beating us over the head with it here is less thought-provoking than annoying.
Just as the movie's main theme is clunky presented, so too is its exposition: There's a particularly wince-worthy scene early on where the camera pans over a cork board that just so happens to give us all the relevant information we'll need about Live Schreiber's journalist character, who shows up a few scenes later.
Likewise, the dialogue is mostly lacking subtlety: The scene where Changes describes how he was "awed" by 9/11 read like a lot of really interesting character development had been condensed into one speech that seemed to have come out of nowhere. There are a lot of good actors, and some not-so-good actors, but none of them really have anything interesting to work with, both in terms of their character development and dialogue. Kiefer Sutherland as Changez' boss came close, but then he devolved into a cardboard Gordon Gekko type (despite efforts made before to humanize him by making him a victim of another kind of prejudice), and I lost interest.
It's a movie that means well, but meaning well isn't enough. It's poorly put together, and it probably won't tell you anything about fundamentalism, terrorism, and the American Dream that you didn't already know. There's nothing that offensive about it, unless oversimplification of complex issues is offensive, in which case The Reluctant Fundamentalist absolutely qualifies. It's just not worth your time.
Its a masterpiece by Mira Nair. Its so gripping that sometimes the viewer also feels emotionally attached with the lead protagonist, Riz Ahmed. Questioning own's beliefs and goals is a difficult task which in this movie Riz Ahmed playing as a Pakistani goal oriented financial analyst has executed brilliantly.. Awesome performances packed with exceptional hard hitting dialogues differentiate this movie with other similar ones. A must watch..
ReplyDelete