Day of the Falcon

(2011)
I suppose if I were an Arab Id get pretty irritated that many movies made about my area of the world usually featured non-Arabs in some of the major roles. From a certain point of view it makes no difference get the best actor for the role but from a certain point of view, it can be perceived as borderline racist. There are great Arab actors out there, so why not get some of them for a movie like this, where every character except one is an Arab? Ranting aside, Day concerns itself with the founding of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which, by this telling, started out as a feud between Sultan Amar (Mark Strong) and his rival Emir Nesib (Antonio Banderas); Nesib has defeated Amar in a small war, and to settle the peace they proclaim a vast area of the desert known as the Yellow Belt to be a no-mans land, owned and used by neither, as a buffer state between their peoples. Amar also has to leave his two sons with Nesib as collateral so hell behave. This arrangement works out fine until the Americans arrive and discover that theres lots of oil in the Yellow Belt. Amar, a man of principle, will have nothing to do with them, while Nesib sort of likes all the money that starts flowing into his kingdom, so he enters into a partnership with him. From there the film focuses on one of Amars sons, the bookish, nerdy Auda (Tahar Rahim), whom Nesib adopts as his own after his older brother Saleeh (Akin Gazi) is killed trying to escape back to their father. Life isnt so bad with Nesib; Auda is given his own library to oversee, and he is married off to princess Leyla (Freida Pinto). When Amar objects to Nesibs use of the Yellow Belt, and tribesmen nominally under his command attack an oil well, Auda is sent to his father to negotiate but surprise!finds his father to be a man of good character and switches his allegiance to him, even though that means leaving Freida Pinto behind, possibly forever. The second half of the movie details Audas unlikely rise as a warrior, leading troops to Nesibs very gates, eventually. I found myself liking this movie less as it went on. It starts out well enough, and Strong, Banderas, and Rahim all give good performances (Pinto is window dressing from start to finish); but as we enter the second half of the movie, the choice for Auda is rendered in simplistic terms: follow his adopted fathers love of money, or follow his real fathers ideals. Theres a point in there somewhere that giving in to wanton capitalism is bad, a sentiment with which I largely agree; but when the other alternative is to live a Luddite medieval existence eschewing any modern convenience, well, maybe Im too American, but thats like putting your head in the sand hoping to avoid the future. The film paints this in a simple black-and-white context, ignoring the fact that in the early 20th century the entire developing world had developed a yearning to be modern this same drama played out in Asia as well and it was hardly as uncomplicated a choice as technology vs. our souls. This complex decision still haunts the region. Reducing it as such and endorsing the Luddites over the progressives struck me as sort of backwards, especially when men on foot and with camels are able to overcome armored cars and airplanes. The idea is that Auda will reconcile both goals for the good of the country, but that part

of the story is clumsily handled, involving convenient deaths and an almost Christlike rebirth of Auda after what looks like his death but is really just a flesh wound. This ham-handedness is a shame, because theres a really interesting story, and the leads are engaging enough to draw us in; but the semi-moralizing in the back half of the film robs it of impact, and its hard to root for Auda when he continually wins one unbelievable victory after another. Its still an enjoyable enough movie, it just starts to peter out toward the end, adopting a storybook approach to its history. May 28, 2013