The Attack (2013)
Average Rating: 7.5/10
Reviews Counted: 48
Fresh: 43 | Rotten: 5
Tense and suspenseful while remaining smart and understated, The Attack honors its complex subject with an intelligent script and captivating performances.
Average Rating: 7.2/10
Critic Reviews: 21
Fresh: 18 | Rotten: 3
Tense and suspenseful while remaining smart and understated, The Attack honors its complex subject with an intelligent script and captivating performances.
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Average Rating: 3.9/5
User Ratings: 4,607
Movie Info
Amin Jaafari (Ali Suliman, Paradise Now) is an Israeli Palestinian surgeon, fully assimilated into Tel Aviv society. He has a loving wife, an exemplary career, and many Jewish friends. But his picture perfect life is turned upside down after a suicide bombing in a restaurant leaves nineteen dead, and the Israeli police inform him that his wife, Sihem (Reymonde Amsellem, Lebanon) who also died in the explosion, was responsible. Convinced of her innocence, Amin abandons the relative security of
Cast
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Ali Suliman
Amin -
Reymond Amsellem
Siham -
Yevgenya Dodina
Kim -
Uri Gavriel
Captain Moshe -
Karim Saleh
Adel -
Dvir Benedek
Raveed -
Rula Salameh
Faten -
Ramzi Maqdisi
The Priest -
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The Attack Trailer & Photos
All Critics (48) | Top Critics (21) | Fresh (43) | Rotten (5)
Screenwriters Ziad Doueiri and Joelle Touma pull quite a few punches here, making the doctor improbably naive about Israeli-Palestinian tensions so that his transformation seems profound.
Top Critic"The Attack" doesn't force us to pick a side. But it does force us to question our outsiders' hope in conciliation.
Arouses profound questions about fanaticism, cultural identity, and the essential mystery of other people, even those we think we know best.
It's set up as a descent into the heart of darkness, but it ends up playing out in pallid shades of grey.
Imagine a blissful life taken away: Story of an Arab man who's assimilated into Israeli society but finds out that his wife was a suicide bomber. Nothing new here about the conflict, fair portrayal of the sides, thought provoking without solutions.
[Doueiri] does a fine job of presenting us with two worlds in conflict: modern, prosperous and progressive Tel Aviv, and Nablus, a city of shadows, squalor and paranoia.
Certainly not easy to digest, but the internal struggle director/co-writer Ziad Doueiri isolates here is exceptional at times, giving the divisive topic the meditative approach it deserves.
Contrary to its blunt title, The Attack takes a nuanced and thoughtful approach
The prevailing mood is somber, but the film is particularly affective at conveying the senselessness of trying to make sense of a conflict that has gained nothing beyond a vast waste of human life.
Thoughtful Israeli political drama.
Drenched in the sweat of spontaneous revelations, and the blood of deep betrayal, this story of an assimilated Arab living in Tel Aviv forces the viewer to ask deeper questions about the very nature of "terror" -- as well as its adjacent "ism."
Answers prove more elusive than the questions.
For all its politics ... "The Attack" is a personal story of a man whose romanticized memories of his wife prevent him from seeing the truth and moving on.
The Attack is the best kind of anti-war propaganda film, calm in feeling and mood, yet truly terrifying in showing the scourge of our age: terrorism, which can strike anybody, anywhere, at any time.
It's an accomplished drama anchored by an understated, captivating performance from an actor who fills nearly every frame of every scene.
...Ziad Doueiri has made the most extraordinary film on Middle Eastern suicide bombings yet by turning it into an investigative love story.
demonstrates as a director the kind of elliptical reserve more commonly associated with Terrence Malick.
The Attack successfully walks a fine line, examining both sides of a complex issue while remaining focused on Amin's personal torment.
Emerges as one of the more piercing pieces of fiction on this subject.
Audience Reviews for The Attack
Super Reviewer
"The Attack" is a powerful, heartbreaking and provocative neo-noir that succeeds on both a psychological and a political level. First and foremost, it is a portrait of a man going through the five stages of grief while wondering how much he really knew the love of his life. As such, the nature of identity is explored on both sides of the wall that now separates Israel and the Occupied Territories and which is never as simple as many people there would like to believe. All of which is seen through the eyes of somebody with a unique perspective on the ongoing tragedy and who in the end owes nobody anything.
Super Reviewer
Discussion Forum
| Topic | Last Post | Replies |
|---|---|---|
| Assimilation and acceptance | 3 months ago | 0 |
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Foreign Titles
- L'Attentat (FR)
