Great acting, moving score, and a solid supporting cast makes this film great, writes Mark Orton.
Director: Mira Nair
Cast: Riz Ahmed, Liev Schreiber, Kate Hudson, Kiefer Sutherland, Om Puri, Shabana Azmi
Rating: (M)
Four stars out of five
Based on Moshid Hamid's best-selling novel of the same name, The Reluctant Fundamentalist starts in a Lahore cafe where an American journalist (Liev Schreiber) interviews a Pakistani man in the wake of an American professor's abduction.
Changez (Riz Ahmed) is a charismatic intellectual leader to the students who hang out at the cafe, and he might have a connection to the abduction.
Without giving too much away, Changez implores the journalist to let him tell his whole story and the clock rewinds to 2001 when he was an up-and-coming Princeton graduate infatuated with the American dream.
Set immediately before, and just after 9/11, the film doesn't keep all the elements of the book intact, including Changez' relationship with artist Erica (Kate Hudson).
Although, in the great scheme of things, these small details are of less consequence than the way director Mira Nair structures the frequent changes in location and time, the success of which falls to Ahmed, who convincingly portrays someone caught in the wrong place at the wrong time and with the wrong face.
Shot in some wonderfully evocative locations, The Reluctant Fundamentalist looks great, is supplemented by a moving score, and Kiefer Sutherland, Liev Schreiber and Om Puri are solid in their support roles.
Best thing: Riz Ahmed's performance.
Worst thing: The love scenes feel very tacked on.
See it with: Anyone who thinks that politics in the wake of 9/11 is black and white.
