The Infidel attempts something few British films have yet done – portray an everyday British- Muslim family just trying to get by.
It's a shame then that the trowled on contrivances of the comedy and of the plot get in the way. The most irksome is how the central conceit is revealed – the very middle aged Omid Djalili's Mahmud discovers he was born to Jews and adopted by Muslim parents after finding his birth certificate in a box of miscellaneous possessions. It's pretty thin – and you would have thought he'd have seen his birth certificate by his age. This happens to coincide with his son's wedding, to the daughter of a Muslim fundamentalist. And also, of course, becoming aware of a more than Jewish than Jewish neighbour in Richard Schiff's Lenny.
The comedy is equally as ham-fistedly constructed in this feature screenplay debut by David Baddiel. Baddiel's understanding of what works in a cinema is not much different to what works in a TV sitcom and the result is a lot of people speaking and gesticulating in rooms. You feel it should be punctuated by a laughter track. Director Josh Appignanesi tries to add a more cinematic feel with depth in frame, longer takes, panning shots and the like, but his style just doesn't seem to fit the material. The result is a very awkward tone with jokes all but disappearing into the background.
That all said, Omid Djalili is good value as Mahmoud. Djalili is a gifted physical comedian and he's particularly good with mannerisms, inventive comedy dancing and accents. He does get some laughs and it's probably due to him that the material works as well as it does.
Throughout, glimmers of insight and the genuinely funny peep through. However, there's a lot more cons than the pros in this disappointing feature.
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