Murphy Howard I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Edwin The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

alexdeleonfilm BETHLEHEM Viewed at the Budapest Israeli Film Week, Dec. 5, 2016 An Israeli Agent and His teenage Palestinian Informant Bethlehem (hebrew: ‫בית לחם‬‎‎) is a 2013 Israeli drama directed by first time helmer Yuval Adler and takes place during the Al-Aqsa second Intifada around 2004 and tells the story of the complex relationship between an Israeli Secret Service officer who speaks Arabic and is trying to avert a major suicide bombing attack, and his teenage Palestinian informant-protegé, Sanfur, who shuttles back and forth between all belligerent sides. Main cast, all first time screen actors and all perfect in their roles.Tsahi Halkevi as the Israeli agent ~ (star charisma) Shadi Mar'i as Sangur the young Palestinian informant Hitham Omari as Radaei, The Palestinian militants leader Running time 99 minutes. The Belgian production company "Entre Chien et Loup" is noted for making hard hitting off mainstream films and the name which means "Neither Dog nor Wolf" is a perfect metaphor for this movie which is neither Pro-Israeli, nor Pro-Palestinian, but, if anything, against the madness on both sides. Both central actors, the protective agent and the conflicted boy, are extremely sympathetic so that you can't help rooting for both of them to come out on top. Unfortunately the rules of the deadly Intafada game are not going to let that happen. The city scapes of Jerusalem and to a lesser extent Bethlehem are more than mere settings -- something like living organic geography. All in all this is a non-stop thriller that brings the Intifada -- the Palestinian uprising against the far more heavily armed Israeli establishment -- right into your living room or your lap depending where you are watching it. Tanks and pellet guns against rock throwing mobs - grenades when necessary -- kalishnikovs -- in your face. Industrial strength film making with totally realistic acting all around -- so realistic it's chilling. Actually more Arabic is heard than Hebrew, and a nifty touch is that the Israeli Intelligence agent, Razi, speaks perfect Arabic when he has to, which is much of his screen time. Since the Palestinians are on screen the majority of the time we see the Intifada more from their point of view, while not necessarily approving or disapproving -- and a mixed point of view it is because of the fierce Internal rivalry between the Hamas and Palestinian authority factions. This internal feud is starkly brought into focus when the two factions nearly come to a shootout over the question of how to dispose of the body of a fighter (martyr) killed in action against the Israelis. This is a film that tells it like it is whether you like it or not and introduces some excellent new actors in a very tightly directed and spellbinding drama apart from whatever politics may or may not be implicit. Both Tsahi Halevi as the handsome. brooding Israeli agent and Shadi Mar'l, the teenage Palestinian caught in the middle of a deadly three way tug of war, radiate star charisma each in his own way. Another surprising candidate for Top Ten of 2016.

Pfandgut When we look at guilt as a the key element used in the plot of "Bethlehem", we find that it is not easily possible to define victim and perpetrator. Even though the characters were never totally free of their responsibility, they were mostly shown in the context of external forces that were stronger than their individual possibility to chose alternatives. These external forces created moral dilemmas in which the characters were caught up.Some of these were for example the codex of Arab family honor conflicted with Sanfur's individual decisions and his fathers opinion about his future in context of his brothers death. There was the psychological issue of a double agent and his personal involvement with his asset conflicting with his orders in the context of his career. Also his rationalism was blurred in the face of a hinted sexual relationship with his colleague, his ambition and his responsibility as a father and husband. Some others dilemmas were also informative for the viewer in order to understand the environment of the plot. In an almost documentary storytelling the film tells about the conflict between Palastinian and Bedouins within the leadership of the Palestinian/Arabic/Islamic militia, the fight for political strength of the Palestinian autonomy or the Al-Aqsa resistance facing religious fundamentalism. Taking these and other issues into account - the characters couldn't escape their moral dilemmas even though they wanted. They had little choices and none of the decisions were not understandable. So in the end everyone was guilty, but the damage done was greater than caused by an individual decision. Therefore this movie shows paradigmatic how the people in this complex conflict can not easily stop ongoing violence. From a western point of view this helps to understand also how naive it is to simply ask the war parties to stop their fighting. It makes us understand that once you are trapped in the spiders net of violence, you cannot stop it from evolving. In this way the movie has done a great job. But what is the second, less obvious, but more scary conclusion drawn from that? Violence is unavoidable and you cannot escape your destiny. But if this so, and everything is determent – how are you responsible for your actions? Another subject where we know this concept from is Qadar, the concept of predestination in Islam belief, which says that everything is written. Higher forces drive your actions and you cannot escape your destiny - doesn't this therefore make you less guilty? This would question legacy for a democratic legal system used in a warlike world as in this conflict. And also made me see the violence on a daily base in a different light.On the same when I saw the movie, a stabbing attack occurred in Jerusalem, clumsy executed by two teen aged Palestinian girls. The attempted terrorist attack and the murder shown in the movie are not completely alike, but yet it were both Palestinian teenagers conflicted with brutal and archaic murder. I would never justify terrorism, but in the light of what I have seen in the movie, I would say it gave me an idea of how people are driven to those acts. It was the first time I ha the glimpse of an idea how people could chose to do such things to others. I wouldn't say I feel empathy, but still I doubt that these people would have chosen their destiny if they had a real choice. And this is what I mean with scary conclusion – how should a society and legacy deal with that, if wrong is done to you, but the cause is not to be found in an individual guilt?The end, which in itself provides a strong symbolic picture (a master is killed by its tool / father is killed by its son) shows us what is left: Archaic violence is what is left. Archaic violence as a cry for help as it exceeds all necessary measures.

Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) Today I would like to review "Bethlehem", the big winner recently at the Israeli Film Prize and thus not surprisingly Israel's submission the the foreign film category at the 2014 Academy Awards. The movie is Yuval Adler's first feature film and can very basically be summarized as a story of trust and betrayal and a teenager who is clearly overwhelmed by the complicated situation he's in. Basically the film teaches us that there's obviously no black and white and every situation of it displays a whole new shade of gray.One thing I was not too fond of was the inclusion of the terrorist leader. It did not add particularly much depth to the story but made me think it was mostly included for depicting violence and making the film more controversial this way. The actor was decent though (I'm not sure if he was great , but he managed to come across pretty scary) and kinda saved it. The stair running scene is certainly one you will not forget that quickly. The ending of the movie is truly violent and I remember very well how one audience member in my showing left the theater complaining loudly about it. Very tense.The boy's character could probably be summarized the easiest by referencing a quote he made which pretty much said that nowhere is really his haven that he would have needed so much with his brother gone and one side just sends him to the other and he is basically nothing but a pawn in this complicated game between Israelis and Palestineans. However, I have to say the fraternal love did not particularly touch me and offered room for improvement. What I found more interesting was the complicated relationship between the Mossad agent and the boy. The agent seemed to have quite a Captain Ahab parallel with the boy's brother and still he managed to make sure that his informant was not near when they caught his Moby Dick in order to protect him.One thing that confused me a bit was how quickly the agent recovered after his severe injury and was right back in action. Also, I felt the relationship between the agent and his girlfriend was displayed a bit random. It was obviously a crucial aspect in the final scene, but they could have shed more light on it earlier on. All in all, it's a decent movie, but not really a must-see unless you're really interested in Gaza Strip related films.

robert-temple-1 This amazingly informative Israeli film is called BETHLEHEM because most of the action takes place there, in the present day. Bethlehem is an entirely Arab town. The film is very dramatically powerful and well-made, even though it is only the first feature film directed by Yuval Adler (whoever he is, as no biographical information or date of birth is recorded for him on IMDb). I read something about this film in a newspaper and ordered the DVD, the cover of which is entirely in Hebrew. It is difficult to access the English subtitles because you have to read Hebrew to know where to click. However, I discovered on my second try that you click on the second Hebrew word at the bottom to get them. The DVD was certainly not manufactured with an English-speaking audience even remotely in mind. I noticed that the end credits were in both Hebrew and Arabic. I gather from indications on the box that this film has won awards at several film festivals including Venice and Telluride. It well deserves them. It is an astonishing inside glimpse of the conflicts going on in Palestine today. The story is essentially an emotional one, about the relationship between an Israeli man who is a security agent named Razi (played excellently by Tsahi Halevi, who has apparently never acted in a film before), and a young Arab Israeli boy called Sanfur played by Shadi Mar'i, who does a brilliant job in an extremely difficult and complex part. Razi has recruited Sanfur as an informant because his older brother is a ruthless terrorist named Ibrahim, who sets off bombs and kills civilians in terror attacks inside Israel. Razi and Sanfur have a strong emotional bond, and Razi saves Sanfur's life by hinting that he should go to see his aunt in Hebron suddenly, as he knows that a security operation is about to take place in which Sanfur may be killed. Sanfur follows his advice and is spared. Sanfur is alienated from his stiff and formal father and accepts Razi as a father figure, and Razi is becoming dangerously attached to Sanfur, thus putting his own life in peril. The main action of the film concerns the struggles between the two conflicting Palestinian factions of the more extreme Hamas, and the less extreme supporters of 'the Palestinian Authority'. Ibrahim is supposed to be a leading militia commander of the latter, but he has secretly been recruited by Hamas and is taking their money without telling his comrades, with Sanfur as the intermediary who collects the money from a vegetable seller in the local market and passes it to his brother. From the beginning, we see that Sanfur is a very emotionally volatile and unstable young man, who erupts into rages very easily. The more troubled Sanfur is, the more Razi is tempted to try to help him, as he sees that he has the potential to be a decent person if he gets the right kind of emotional help and support. But meanwhile, Sanfur is becoming increasingly compromised and trapped from two sides. On one side, he is not telling friends, family and comrades that his brother has sold out to Hamas, and on the other side, his friendship with Razi may be revealed because Razi has obtained hospital treatment for him for a gunshot wound, and this may be discovered. Sanfur's father is a passive fanatic who says that only Ibrahim enables him to hold his head up with pride, because he is bombing and killing the hated oppressors, the Jews. Sanfur does not want to bomb or kill anybody, but he is surrounded by killers and rival militias on all sides. The film is a tragic portrayal of how impossible it is for many of the Palestinian Arabs to escape from the vicious cycles of hatred and murder which absorb and monopolize their lives. When they are not trying to kill the Israelis, the rival militias are trying to kill each other, which they do much more often. There is one terrible scene where the vicious and hardened militia leader Badawi, played excellently by Hitham Omari (of whom nothing is recorded on IMDb), is friendly and joking with another Arab militia fighter as they run up a staircase teasing one another, and then when they reach the top, he casually pushes him over the banister to his death, without so much as a moment's hesitation or any qualm. That is how brutalised the lives of these people have become. They simply have to go on killing, killing, killing, without any respite, and often they are killing friends and even their own family members. It is also interesting to see how the Arab 'townies' continually ridicule Badawi for being of Bedouin descent. They insult him by saying his father came in from his desert tent to the town and had not even learned how to wear shoes. I had not realized the Bedouin were held in such low esteem. The many layers of Palestinian Arab society are thus shown in gruesome conflict and strife with one another, and they cannot agree on anything, not even the levels of violence to be inflicted upon the Jews. In view of the fact that the rival factions in Palestine have recently 'made peace' with one another and formed a joint government, one really wonders how on earth such a thing can ever work. Since they seem to hate each other more than they hate the Jews, what future is there for Palestine? It seems to me that murder, treachery, betrayal, and terror can never disappear from this unhappy part of the world. This film helps us see the inside perspectives and personal tragedies and conflicts which are never otherwise clear, no matter how many newspaper articles you read. I am not permitted by IMDb reviewing rules to discuss the ending of the film, so I cannot comment on how the story turns out.