O Jerusalem? Oh Puh-leez!!

Hands down – O Jerusalem is the absolute worst movie of 2007. And yes, I’m taking Norbit, Blades of Glory, and even Oriental Riders #3 into account.


The script is ass, the casting is bogus, and in regards to their acting - I've seen donkeys fake better orgasms than that. Seriously folks, you'd be better off staying home and conducting a self-circumcision than shelling out nine bucks for this hershey-squirt of a film.

To begin with, it's horribly Zio-centric. For a story that aims to be "told from the alternating viewpoints of the Jews, Arabs and Brits," it sure spends a disproportionate amount of time developing the humanity of its Jewish characters - at the expense of "Arabs and Brits" (who apparently have a 1:2345 ratio of people with reason and morality).

But that's not even what irks me the most. After all, I know better than to expect a major theater to play a non-biased movie about Israel (Paradise Now being the only exception - with limited engagements, of course). But given the film's synopsis, which claims to “meticulously re-create the historic struggle surrounding the creation of the State of Israel in 1948,” I did - at the very least - expect a movie devoid of historical fabrications (lies of omission, however, are a given in Hollywood - aaaaand, interestingly enough, Israel).

Who knows, maybe Elie Chouraqui (producer/writer/director) doesn't know the meaning of "meticulous." Hell, I get paid to write and just learned what "gynoplasty" means - so it could happen. Just in case, here's what Dictionary.com defines it as:

me•tic•u•lous [muh-tik-yuh-luh s] – adjective – Taking or showing extreme care about minute details; precise; thorough: a meticulous craftsman; meticulous personal appearance.

Phhhheeew! Now that we've got that cleared up, allow me to share with you some of the many things that are NOT meticulous about this film:

• Dressing inner-city Arabs as wretched goat herders during the British occupation – when in reality they wore shirts and ties – is not meticulous.
• Recreating 1948’s Jerusalem as a chicken-shack/donkey village – though it was a huge and pretty modern city for its time – is not meticulous.
• Neglecting to mention why Palestinians and other Arabs were against partition, making it seem as though they were just selfish Jew-hating bastards – is not meticulous.
• Portraying the Irgun as a terrorist organization, but passing the Haganah off as a force of moral soldiers – is not meticulous.
• Re-creating King Abdullah's palace as a mere tent in the Jordanian desert – is not meticulous.
• Asserting that King Abdullah was a proponent of Zionism for the sole reason of fulfilling Muslim prophecy (???) - is not meticulous.
• Claiming that Irgun terrorists felt so sorry for what they did at Deir Yassin that they gave up arms and apologized to the Haganah - is not meticulous.
• Scripting a Jordanian soldiers/Haganah henchman hug-fest after a cease fire was established - is not meticulous.

And believe me - the list does go on. In fact, some of the fabrications, subplots, and story-lines are so ridiculous that I couldn't stop laughing during the film's saddest and most heartfelt moments. For instance, when the lead Jewish character offers his dying love-interest a cigarette and she refuses because it's Shabbat - but had no problem picking up an Uzi and gunning down a whole slew of Arabs just moments before… now that's fucking hilarious!!

Seriously - historical fiction is one thing, but when a story is grounded in an alternative universe's past… that's just plain ol' fiction. O Jerusalem is liberal-Zionist (yes, an oxymoron) propaganda at its best! I advise you only watch it if you're constipated and need incentive to shit.

(Special thanks to Sharen, Dunia, Samar, and Chaim for their input in writing this review)