by MATTHEW HAYS

Omar Sharif's career presents one of those unpleasant mysteries of the acting business. Clearly endowed with a more-than-solid screen presence, star of critically lauded and commercially successful films like Lawrence of Arabia, Funny Girl, Doctor Zhivago and Juggernaut, the man seemed to disappear for over a decade.

Thus Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran is being touted as a welcome sentimental comeback for Sharif. Clearly, the man has lost little of his onscreen charm, winning over critics and a Best Actor César for his work on the film. It's purported to be a touching tale, with Sharif's comeback status enhancing the film's overall nostalgic aura.

Monsieur Ibrahim is set in Paris in the early '60s. There, a barely-pubescent Jewish boy (Pierre Boulanger) is discovering his manhood, left virtually alone by his single-parent dad, who has lapsed into a serious depression. Boulanger manages to convince various local prostitutes to service him, much to his delight. He occasionally wanders into the corner store and, over time, bonds with the store owner, Ibrahim (Sharif).

Ibrahim is one of those sweet old men, full of charm and infinite wisdom, the kind who only exists in movies as sentimental as this one. Ibrahim is soon dispensing vital life lessons, including bits and pieces of the Coran; the film indicates that, their friendship born of innocence, their differences (one being Jewish the other Muslim) are essentially meaningless.

I'm as happy as the next film buff to see Sharif back in action, but the thrill of seeing a pop culture figure gone AWOL show up to collect a pension doesn't really make up for writer-director François Dupeyron's script. Monsieur Ibrahim can best be described as We-Are-the-World schmaltz, with an internal logic that numbs the mind with its all-out, blatantly manipulative tactics.

The cross-cultural stuff is laudable, but hackneyed. If Monsieur Ibrahim did reveal something to me, it's that our nostalgia-soaked love for aging stars is indeed a blinding one.

Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran opens Friday, April 16 at Ex-Centris in French with English subtitles

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