Matt Fagerholm

There’s no question that Islamophobia is also on the rise around the globe, and this film — however inadvertently and well-intentioned — plays directly into it.

Landsman’s film is enraging for all the right reasons, and more than a few wrong ones as well. It comes off as more of a puff piece than an exposé.

Many of the film's backdrops are admittedly breathtaking, yet the foregrounded people never seem to be actually populating them. The character animation is so flat and uninspired that it causes Dilili and her fellow humans to resemble stickers grafted onto postcards, with the subtle use of shadows and reflections doing little to add dimension.

When a comedy is made about a real-life topic that is no laughing matter, it had better be funnier than Sameh Zoabi’s Tel Aviv on Fire. The premise is a richly flavorful one, but the execution is as bland as unseasoned hummus.

There are no thrills in this western yarn, just a mounting series of tragedies that are by turns frustrating and numbing.

What Hammond and Markiewicz are most gifted at is cinematography. I’d gladly watch this film’s entire B-roll again just to bask in the gorgeous Mexican landscapes and vivid snapshots of the cities, outdoor markets and parking lots where various matches occur.

So vague is the picture about the meaning of the artworks it presents that they proved to be of little interest to me, until I researched them afterward. Far more compelling is Beuys himself, with his signature hat, haunted gaze and outspoken belief that art can be a vehicle for communication.

The execution is riddled with problems, not the least of which is the absence of Salinger’s actual work.

The irony is that as Gallner’s performance gets stronger, the film around him grows weaker.