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Critics Consensus: Twisty and riveting, Omar is a well-directed crime drama with uncommon depth.
Critic Consensus: Twisty and riveting, Omar is a well-directed crime drama with uncommon depth.
All Critics (85) | Top Critics (32) | Fresh (76) | Rotten (9)
This gripping Palestinian thriller evokes Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers in its depiction of not only the psychological pressures faced by people under occupation, but the murky moral consequences of retaliating.
It's told with a stark, pitiless clarity that leaves you with fewer answers than before.
Omar is romance and thriller. Of course, trust is at the heart of the matter.
A fraught film ...
Abu-Assad offers no solutions here. Instead he paints a portrait of the daily rhythms of the occupation, an endless conflict that has seeped into every aspect of life in the West Bank.
The film works best as a straightforward melodrama set in an anything but straightforward world.
The action tropes handled so well in the film's first half are pushed aside for clumsy melodrama by the end of the film.
There are no clear-cut good guys or bad guys in Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad's stinging vision; no one in Omar exits with clean hands, which helps lift the movie above its grounding in the basics of film noir.
Omar is a relatively undidactic take on the lives of ordinary Palestinians with no choice but to endure the indignities imposed by the constraints of Israel's "separation wall."
Omar is an obvious political thriller which consistently, insistently attempts to steer us in a particular direction.
Beautifully shot, complicated, smart, and undeniably intense ... well-deserving of its place as the Palestinian nominee for this year's Best Foreign Language Film.
Doesn't provide easy answers as it builds its pressure cooker environment, putting primary attention on the personalities involved, allowing for a human perspective as it details acts of breathless survival and suffocating paranoia.
Like with Paradise Now, Abu-Assad finds a perfect balance between delicate drama and taut thriller in this well-constructed Palestinian film that depicts with intense realism life under Israeli occupation, while posing difficult questions to which there are no easy answers.
Super Reviewer
"Omar" surprised me. With such a short running time, I did not expect the film to have such emotional depth to it, but it really took advantage of it's 98 minute run time, which I really admired. The lead actor steals the show with his very gentle and kind performance, but when his character needs to be reckless he really let's loose. As Omar grows up hanging around his friends, all they do is terrorize the town at night, and when one of his friends commit murder, they are on the run, and Omar's love, family, and friends are all at risk. This is an emotionally satisfying film with a perfectly executed conclusion. Such a great picture!
Omar(Adam Bakri) climbs the security wall for his job in Israel at a bakery, in order to save up enough money to marry Nadia(Leem Lubany) who he trades notes with. However, that course of action is not entirely without risk, as he also dodges bullets and faces the tough questioning and beatings of any Israeli troops he cannot dodge. Otherwise, he hangs out with his childhood friends, Tarek(Eyad Hourani), Nadia's older brother, and Amjad(Samer Bisharat) who does a cool Brando impression. Together, they go into the woods for target practice before taking aim for real at an Israeli soldier... While "Omar" has certain faults like a couple of inexplicable plot strands that serve only to move the story along and a sudden, problematic ending, it is still a solid, morally complex movie that goes beyond simple politics to show how actions do have consequences. On the one hand, you have the title character who risks his possible happiness with Nadia for the future of his people. Making this harder emotionally is Rami(Waleed F. Zuaiter, who is excellent), an Israeli agent, who uses much more humane methods to get information than lighting a fire under somebody's scrotum. All the while, Omar's lawyer(Yael Lerer) has the best solution and a perfectly common sense one when she says to end the occupation.
'Omar'. The stakes are high in this love story that balances tender and tense admirably. Ultimately, very Shakespearesque.
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