Looking for Comedy in a Film Called Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World

If there is one thing I hate more that a good idea poorly exectued, it is a good idea poorly executed by a guy who should have known better.

Albert Brooks is not always the guy I think of when I think of knock down drag out funny, but every time I see "Defending Your Life" or "Mother" I do not curse the heavens for allowing me to waste my time. On the contrary, those are both nice films with a nice spot of wit to them. A twinge tame, but not a waste of time by any stretch of my imaginatation. So when I heard that he was putting out a film called "Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World" I thought- wow! That's brave! What a great idea. Plus the circumstance of his Jewishness and his kvetchy, insecure approach to comedy made me think that this was going to be a fun, fun movie.

I was wrong.

This film sets out to say one thing, that Muslims must laugh too, right? The conclusion he comes to is that no, they don't. They are incapable of understanding any kind of humor whatsoever. Well, that is bullshit and simply not true.

First, Brooks is invited to Washington to meet with a committee that is appointing him to do a study of laughter in the Muslim world. He spends the whole scene hemming and hawing over the number of pages expected in the report and this exercise goes absolutely nowhere. The scene is too long and suffers from the performance of a man trying to do too much. "While I am acting this scene, I also have to direct it and figure out if the writing works and worry about the budget and distribution, am I doing the right thing? Hmmm, what was I saying? Oh yeah, I'm in a scene..."

From there, Brooks- who is playing himself, which I think is a disasterous short cut for this concept as it makes the choices far too self conscious- goes to India with a couple of government employees. One of these fellows is a yes man and a fan, the other is a preening peacock who is always on his cell phone. Once they get to India, Brooks interviews some women for the position as his assistant. He hires a smart and beautiful Hindi woman (Where are the Muslims?) who does not understand sarcasm nor does she get any of his jokes, but she finds him fascinating. They proceed to stop people in the street and ask them what makes them laugh and not one of them has anything approaching humor.

This is pretty much the last time there is any real attempt at dealing with a Muslim population. After that he sets up a free comedy show in New Delhi and does his old act and he bombs. It is painful. It goes on far too long and the humiliation never ends.

Eventually he ends up making an illegal crossing into Pakistan to have a secret meeting with some aspiring Pakistani comedians, but instead of interviewing them he is forced to perform his act for them and this time they laugh. But we never get to hear from the Pakistani comedians, we just get to see Brooks' act- again.

Then comes the obligatory intrigue and mixed up intelligence that leads to an international incident, but to all of this Brooks is largely unaware and remains so until the end of the film. Basically, this movie was "Ishtar" but not nearly as funny.

I can come up with all kinds of excuses for why this film seemed so terrible and rushed. But this film is so bad that I have to wag my finger because a man of Albert Brooks' intelligence should have known better. I heard he didn't have any support because the subject matter was risky. Well, that is all the more reason to do it right. I know he knows how to do it right and so I can't give him any pats on the back just for trying. Any interesting turn or possible point of discovery was completely avoided and that makes for a stale film with a false and, dare I say, racist conclusion.

I know a few Muslims who are in possession of great humor. I hope they won't waste their money on this film.