Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad put himself on the map with 2005’s uncompromising suicide bomber drama Paradise Now , and this shows no dip in quality. Sidestepping religious questions, it follows Omar (Adam Bakri), as much a street kid acting out as he is freedom fighter.
Lifted by the Israeli army, should he betray a co-conspirator in exchange for his freedom? The same story could have been set in any period, but set in an urgent contemporary world this is alive to the major moral conundrums contained in the everyday.
