by CHRIS BARRY and KEVIN LAFOREST

Sabah

Well, how often does this happen? I went to the press screening of Sabah, fully expecting to come home having to find a bunch of new and inventive ways to write about how hard a film can suck. After all, it’s a relatively low-budget Toronto-made romance flick about a traditional Muslim broad who falls in love with a white “Canadian” dude and, as a result, finds herself at odds with her conservative Middle Eastern family. And sure, I’m jaded, but that sounds like a sure-fire recipe for crap in my book. But no siree, folks, this is an excellent movie.

Writer, director and former Montrealer Ruba Nadda has produced a truly accomplished picture here: intelligent, well-written, well-acted (for the most part, at least), with characters who are actually multi-dimensional instead of the simplistic good or evil variety that, dare I say it, Hollywood might bring you. And don’t worry about Sabah being too heavy-handed for you either. The sort of person who thought My Big Fat Greek Wedding was the most charming thing ever to hit the big screen will dig this movie as well.

Unfortunately, given the box office track record of most Canadian features, they’ll probably never even hear about Sabah, let alone get the opportunity to see it. Which truly is a shame, if, for no other reason than to afford filmgoers a better understanding of the Muslim experience in a primarily Judeo-Christian culture. (CB)

Metallic Blues

When an Arab comes by their dealership desperate to sell his metallic-blue 1985 Lincoln Continental limo, Israeli car salesmen Shmuel and Siso figure this is a once-in-a-lifetime profit opportunity. They buy the car for five grand, then take it to Germany, where they’re sure they can sell it for up to 50,000 euros.

Unfortunately, things turn out to be more complicated. Their Middle Eastern complexions attract the attention of the customs agents and they soon realize that with the high cost of living in Europe, this get-rich-quick business trip might end up putting them in the red. Being in Germany also awakens ghosts of the Holocaust, as the two men recall the horror stories their parents told them about their experiences during World War II.

Sounds grim, but this Israel-Canada co-production is actually a rather light-hearted tragicomedy. Much of it deals with the ridiculous effect money has on people, and how they spend away to feel like big shots one minute, then go nuts trying to save pennies the next. Seeing how confident and greedy the characters are at the beginning of the film, we can only smile and wait for them to fall on their faces as unexpected expenses pile up and the car’s condition deteriorates. Avi Kushnir and Moshe Ivgy effortlessly trade banter like the seasoned pros they are, making this a pleasant ride. (KL)

Undead

When thinking of movie zombies, one pictures the lumbering antagonists of George A. Romero’s Living Dead series or maybe the fast raging ones seen in 28 Days Later and the Dawn of the Dead remake. For filmmakers Down Under, though, zombies seem to mostly be comedy props. Indeed, the Spierig brothers’ debut feature is a farcical horror flick in the spirit of Peter Jackson’s early New Zealand “splatstick” films (1987’s Bad Taste and 1992’s Braindead).

Set in the Australian countryside, Undead follows a beauty queen, a mysterious fisherman, two cops, a bush pilot and his very pregnant girlfriend as they’re forced to deal with meteor showers, acid rain, alien abductions and, yes, zombies. I couldn’t make much sense of the plot, but that’s a detail in a movie like this. What truly matters is getting the gore going, and we definitely get a healthy serving of that. The make-up and special effects are perfectly gruesome, especially considering the filmmakers had less than $1-million to work with.

The performances are mostly rotten, but Mungo McKay cuts a striking figure as badass fisher Marion, who mows down zombies with double-fisted handguns like a hero in a John Woo movie. Felicity Mason is pretty cool too, especially when she starts chopping heads and limbs with a circular saw stuck on a broomstick! High art this is not, but it’s a fun B-movie. (KL)

Sabah, Metallic Blues and Undead open Friday, July 15

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