A Day and a Half

"I've seen this classified as a mystery, a thriller, and a drama. It's pretty much just a drama. It's not a "hostage thriller" as I saw some critic call it. It felt like a hostage drama about a very dysfunctional family. Not a lot of action. Kind of slow. Anticlimactic ending. But wonderful acting performances and I really like Fares Fares. He did a great job in his directorial debut with a low budget and no special effects or CGI. Based on an article that Fares read which stuck with him, he created a completely fictional script to go with the gist of the true life situation he read about. The movie has a lot of soul and the wonderful talent makes this movie. I just wouldn't go into it thinking it's a thriller or filled with action. And it's not a mystery either. It's just a movie about the helplessness we can feel when pushed up against a wall and what we'll do to get justice, or get back at the people who have wronged us, or basically just get back what was wrongfully taken, whether it's true or just in our heads. (In my opinion, it wasn't all in his head. I do think he was wronged by a racist family.) What would you do in this person's situation? How far would you go? It was really just very sad to me."