by MARK SLUTSKY

Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World

First things first: Despite what seems like pretty strong evidence to the contrary (namely, the film’s title), Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World is not a documentary. In fact, it’s actually the latest comedy from legendary funnyman and writer/actor/director Albert Brooks (Lost in America, Mother).

Brooks plays himself here—or at least somebody a lot like him who’s also named “Albert Brooks.” After flunking an audition with Penny Marshall, Brooks, whose leading-man prospects are slim, finds himself summoned to Washington where he’s asked to lead an investigation into what makes Muslims laugh, so Americans can best understand the way they think. He’s sent to India (home of 150-million Muslims, he’s reminded) and given a month to produce a 500-page report.

I guess the big joke is supposed to be that hapless Brooks doesn’t do a very good job of looking for comedy in the Muslim world, as his investigative technique involves stopping random people (not necessarily Muslims, even) in the street and asking them, “What makes you laugh?” and then, later, setting up a stand-up comedy show so he can see what the audience responds to.

Trouble is, the big joke of the movie, if that’s what it is, isn’t particularly funny or well-executed—if this is supposed to be a satire of ignorant Americans overseas, it’s not a very good one. You wish he had just gone and made a documentary about Muslim humour, as that seems like such an interesting subject—although it’s one the movie clearly couldn’t care less about.

Guy X

A weird, uninviting title for a weird, uninviting movie. Directed by Saul Metzstein, Guy X is set in a far-flung American military base in Greenland in 1979. This is where we meet Rudy Spruance (Jason Biggs), a corporal meant for a position in Hawaii, but who’s dropped off at the bleak Qangattarsa due to a case of mistaken identity.

Believing him to be a public-relations officer with a completely different name, base commander Colonel Woolwrap (Jeremy Northam) sets him up with a little pet project, writing and editing a newsletter (and doing it all on a PET computer, no less). Rudy soon falls for Northam’s girlfriend, Sergeant Teal (Natascha McElhone), at the same time he discovers a secret medical facility housing seemingly comatose Vietnam vets. One of these vets—the “Guy X” of the title, played by Michael Ironside—seems to come alive whenever Biggs is near, and the two forge a bond, as everything around them goes cuckoo.

What’s there to go cuckoo over at a Greenland military base in 1979? Well, in a movie like Guy X, which clearly aspires to a certain military absurdity along the lines of M*A*S*H, Catch-22 or Three Kings, just about everything—especially as the sun never sets that far north. Unfortunately, the absurdity never quite gets absurd, funny or pointed enough. It’s never quite clear just what the movie is supposed to be sending up here. Strangely incomplete.

Lost Embrace

Set in a small mall in Buenos Aires, Daniel Burman’s Lost Embrace is a very likeable Argentine movie that sits comfortably on the comedy/drama divide. Daniel Hendler plays Ariel Makaroff, scion of a fatherless Jewish family that owns a lingerie store in a little shopping plaza on a downtown street. His father’s been away for decades, ever since he left to fight in the Yom Kippur War, and Ariel himself is thinking of trying to get a Polish passport and move to Europe. Only he’s not quite sure if he should—if he’s just making the same mistake his father made by running away from everything.

Lost Embrace’s style is jerky and handheld; it well captures the hustle and bustle of central Buenos Aires. You come to know all of the mall’s denizens, from the religious tailors to the Korean feng shui specialists to the ageing sexpot Internet café owner, herself entangled in both a mysterious relationship with an older man/financial backer, and with Ariel. Even Ariel’s brother Elías (Jorge D’Élia) is a denizen of the mall, making weird deals out of an upstairs office. With its jostling atmosphere and well-executed light comedy, it’s fun to watch, if a little slight.

Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World, Guy X and Lost Embrace open Friday, Jan. 20

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