The Whole Premise Of This Movie Is Absurd

Like many others said the premise of the movie is that you can choose your own religion. The man finds out he was Jewish born and so goes on to have an identity crisis of sorts whereby he is doing things in a Jewish way and at other times in a Muslim way. The story line is actually quite good, and I would suggest watching the movie before commenting on it in a negative manner.

PS this movie highlights some of these "spiritual" feelings as well as showing interconnectedness between the faiths and showing how ridiculous fanatacism is from the people of any faith background. so again, watch the movie you may just enjoy it.

I'm afraid I have to disagree. My father (white British in case of confusion), was a deputy head and teacher at a school in Birmingham, where there were children from Pakistani families and Muslim families, with some Jewish. It's hard to comprehend just how complicated the whole affair is. The rivalries are intense and from my experience with his work it became clear that the forceful nature of the Islamic religion, for example, beset fathers to be forceful towards their own families and children when it comes to his religion. It's these forceful techniques that confuse a lot of children in our modern society, and some parents too. A great deal of the students at the school he worked at were essentially English, but with either one or two of their parents being from Pakistan or Islam. The confusion over simply wanting to be a British kid and do everything their friends do, be they white or otherwise, or to follow the religion their forceful fathers and devote themselves to faith is one of the worst afflictions they can bear. Islamic religion quite clearly forces anyone devoted to it to instantly appose the views and lifestyles of anyone from the west, regardless of if, deep down, they know they do not personally hold it against them.

But in terms of the film, having only seen the trailer you cannot comment on the validity or quality of it. It is a form of ignorance to believe you have made a clear and concise viewpoint on something you have not seen. It would also be ignorant for anyone to claim they are either Christian or atheist when they know nothing about the religion itself. People are too quick to declare themselves atheist, and often they do it simply to be able to fit into an infrastructure when lost in terms of their own self identity. I am an atheist, however, this is because I have studied the bible, and in my opinion I believe it to be nullifying and lacking in enlightenment to believe it to be gospel truth. Science is always able to discount it.

However, I do take an active interest in religions, if only because of my thirst for knowledge about the world which surrounds us. And it's because of this I found this film to be utterly hilarious. It was very well written and Omid was excellent.

9/10

Actually...Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group. Meaning their religion and ethnicity are very much related. Jewish people, as an ethnicity, are able to trace their lineage back to the ancient Israelites. Well, most groups can. Meaning many Jewish people actually have a direct lineage to the original Jewish religion itself, or rather the people that spawned the religion.

So, when it comes to Jewish people, the religion AND the ethnicity can be considered one thing. This is kind of one of the major reasons that the middle east has been at war for 2,000 years. Judaism and the Muslim religion are completely at odds with each other. There is no great number of people hopping back and forth between the two. I'm sure it happens, but it's not exactly common place. It's not a matter of "comfort", it's a matter of genealogy, and the fact that in the middle east, there is no separation of religion and politics. Politics IS religion, and visa-versa. And both their religious books have very strict rules on what happens when you change faiths. Such as, in the Muslim religion, technically it's legal by law to kill someone who is not the same religion, seeing as how they are not equal as a human. A man is one, a woman is equal to half a man, and a non-muslim is equal to half a woman. Essentially in some countries of the middle-east, if you're not the local religion, you're about equal to livestock. Perhaps less. Granted the Christian bible has quite a few terrible things in it as well. So I'm not playing favorites. All 3 religions have the same foundation afterall.

Now as to the question of actual faith, yes people can clearly choose whatever they want. But the Jewish religion isn't quite as cut and dry as Christianity. Afterall, Christianity was born on the backs of Jews and gentiles. But these people went against their genetic heritage. Religion is so complicated aint it.

You really shouldn't post a comment on a movie based on the trailer.
It does not matter what religious views you have on it because when it boils down to it the film is terrible anyway. Just seen it and its awful.

"The world is full of people who were raised Muslim who later converted to Judaism, and vice-versa, "

I think you can only become jewish if your mother is jewish from what i know about judaism.

Mate - inteligent comedy - really you should get out more...uif all you took away from this film was the usual religio-psycho-babble claptrap I think you kind of missed the point of the movei which is that a) it's all *beep* and b) support of family and friends is what's important...

...Northern Ireland - I'm gonna guess you know as much about NI as you do about Islam and Judaism not being ethnicities...right? I dont get it - the whole point of the film is how absurd the whole thing is - seriously- it's all *beep* it depends entirely on which religous nutter you decide to believe that week...

By reducing the entire motivations and relationships of the characters to simple religious dimensions you're missing the most interesting and complicated sub-text of the movie you passed on.
Technically, Pakistanis aren't a monolithic ethnic group- but a nation that was born and separated itself into a cultural cohesion based on religion.
Technically Jews aren't a monolithic group, but a nation that was born and separated itself into a cultural cohesion based on religion.

The fact that both groups happened to be born in the same year, makes the similarities, and differences all the more enticing in their potential for conflict.

And of course, our lead protagonists were not even born in the aforementioned nations- (and so chose where their loyalties and connections were placed)and weren't even born in the same western country either- but found comity and really did broaden and enhance each other's lives.

And neither were practicing their faiths anyway- but simply upholding their social contracts within the limitations of their group identities.

It was the way OTHERS responded to Mahmoud's declaration of his discovery of his Jewish lineage- not any decision made by anyone.

Here's a funny true personal story-
My grandmother came from Germany and my Dad and all of my relatives made trips there many times over the years, my Dad being particularly fascinated with and strongly identified with his German heritage.

My grandmother swore me to secrecy before she died and told me no one was German at all- but the family had come from Alsace and emigrated, and so all of our blood was French. After I thought about it for one second I realized her maiden name was- French. (No one else had ever noticed before either.)

A few years after she died, I told my Dad, normally a very logical kind of guy.
Now his head told him this was true, but his emotions told him he is German, and will always be German.
Yes, and he did get mad at me for telling him.

Now, his ethnicity wasn't his choice- but it was his choice to decide he is German, as incongruous as that may be.

We humans just aren't so one dimensional to define ourselves wholly and entirely by one aspect, such as religion.
We're a funny lot, and this movie illustrated that point nicely.
It was a comedy, and I laughed...A LOT, and so it was successful.

I just stumbled across this movie today. It was available for instant play on Netflix, so I just started watching it and I loved it! When I discovered that my ancestors were Cherokee, I started learning more about the Cherokee. When I discovered I was descended from some Huguenots, I started learning more about the Huguenots. When I discovered a Hessian soldier in my family tree, I started learning more about the Hessians. But when the Holy Ghost testified to me that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was true, I left my Protestant church in a heartbeat. People do change religions. Nobody said this guy had to become Jewish, but for many people there is that moment of curiosity about what might have been.