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'Muslim World' surprises; falls short with humor, intelligence

January 24, 2006
Albert Brooks stars as himself, writes and directs "Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World," a Warner Independent Pictures release. —

The title sums up the whole plot — "Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World" is about just that.

The U.S. government realizes it hasn't been making much progress in its relations with the Muslim countries, so it decides to try a different approach. After the more popular comedians turn the government down, it gets Albert Brooks to take on the mission. Brooks agrees to travel to India and Pakistan and find out what makes Muslim people laugh.

The movie started off proving me wrong — with a title like "Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World," I was bracing myself for the worst. The film had potential to be extremely offensive or tastefully insightful. It fell somewhere in between not terrible and short of greatness.

The film begins by impressively avoiding a lot of stereotypes you might expect. It sticks to making fun of Brooks, who must have a great sense of humor since he makes himself the butt of most of the jokes. He's been rejected from yet another role and is beginning to get desperate. So is his wife, whose online shopping addiction is an entertaining addition to the film.

Enter the U.S. government. Brooks is unsure of the mission to the Muslim world, mainly because he will have to put together a 500-page report. Governmental inefficiency is highlighted humorously as the officials assure him he can add lots of charts and graphs to bolster his report. It promises that no one reads the reports, only weighs them to ensure the money allocated to the task was well spent.

Brooks is finally convinced when promised the "Presidential Medal of Freedom." The movie is at its comedic climax here, with facial expressions timed perfectly to make this poke at bureaucracy and Americanism sidesplitting.

The middle of the movie is where things start to fall short. Brooks and his two government colleagues travel to India and Pakistan to do their research. Their time spent in the Muslim world is largely unsuccessful and so is the humor in this part of the movie. The jokes are far and few between and often hard to detect.

I found myself relating to the Muslim girl played by Sheetal Sheth — Maya — that Brooks takes on as an assistant. She is desperately trying to understand Brooks' sense of humor. When she doesn't laugh she apologizes and blames herself, but she should have just told Brooks to make better jokes.

The movie starts to invoke stereotypes during the middle of the film. When Brooks meets with the Pakistani people, they are high on what the audience can assume is opium and are all donning automatic weapons. Maya's boyfriend, originally from Iran, is jealous and controlling. The office from which they work is blighted and filled with American companies that have moved to India.

We never really learn what Muslims think is funny, and they end up being portrayed as humorless — this is a slightly offensive and incorrect assertion. Brooks' comedy routine in India failed to make the crowd of "overly serious" Muslims laugh, but I didn't think it was funny either.

I think the movie set out trying to provide some social commentary on a post-9/11 United States. It was a good idea since the United States' relations with the Muslim world is an important topic to explore. Unfortunately, the film falls short of any discovery or real commentary. The only thing it manages to point out is the vanity and egocentrism of Americans.

The film succeeded more at highlighting government inefficiency around the world. There was no insight or solution; the criticism was more like a soft tap on the shoulder instead of a kick in the face to ineffective bureaucracies.

The U.S. government accomplishes nothing and goes back to using more traditional methods to deal with the parts of the world it cannot understand. Those methods being threats and invasions. India and Pakistan's governments refuse to work together and continue to distrust each other despite the long period of peace that has been observed.

The beginning and the end of "Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World" are hilarious. The jokes are subtle and skillfully executed. However, the film has some serious flaws that are semi-offensive on top of being not funny. Overall, the film fails to keep up with the witty jokes, and it never provides any intelligent conclusions about the Muslim world and the United States' relations with it.

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