“Two Thumbs Up”
ROGER EBERT:
Two new movies both deal with terrorists preparing to blow themselves up in the process of murdering others and that makes them very timely right now. Paradise Now, which follows the last days of two Palestinians who are recruited and trained to cross over into Israel as human bombs, is one of these films. A woman who cares for one of these men tries to talk him out of this mission.
The other film, The War Within, tells the story of a Pakistani man who is kidnapped by western intelligence, tortured and becomes radicalized. He eventually finds himself in New York as a part of a terrorist cell.
Both films show men who believe they have a divine mission that justifies the murder of others. Both films show that there is no real response to religious zealots who believe their guidance comes directly from heaven. And both films end in essentially the same place. And both films get thumbs up from me, but they may not be playing in your area right now. So the best film I have seen on the subject is on DVD. It’s called the Terrorist, from 1999, from India and it’s available on DVD. It’s one of my great movie selections on Roger Ebert.com
RICHARD ROEPER:
Two thumbs up for me for the films that are, as you’re saying, playing in some markets of course both will be available on DVD sooner rather than later. And I liked the fact that these films explore these very touchy subjects in a very respectful manner. They humanize the terrorists but never have us sympathize with them too much. I don’t want people to think that these are pro-terrorism or they’re really trying to show the other side of things. It’s just giving you, I think, two very accurate portrayals of what terrorists go through, the mindset, and what happens in their hearts to make themselves think, “I’ll kill myself and I will kill other people.”
ROGER EBERT:
After my print review of “Paradise Now” appeared in the Sun-Times I got an e-mail from somebody who said that I was trying to humanize these animals. And I wrote back and I said, “By calling them animals you’re thinking exactly the way that they think about you.”
RICHARD ROEPER:
And that makes it way too convenient. It’s like the film we talked about - about the last days of Hitler where he’s in the bunker and you see him - you see - just to call these people monsters is too easy. Too convenient. And these films are much smarter than that.
ROGER EBERT:
We have to deal with the fact that human beings are doing these things and you can’t just give them a title that gets rid of them
RICHARD ROEPER:
Two very good films.
Two thumbs up for “THE WAR WITHIN.”