IslandGuru Who payed the critics

BroadcastChic Excellent, a Must See

Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Konterr Brilliant and touching

Philip Van der Veken What can you expect from a Swedish comedy that is called "Jalla! Jalla!" and that has been made with an unknown cast by a man you've never heard of before? Quite a lot as this movie proves. It's subject certainly isn't one of the easiest, but Josef Fares made a good movie out of it.Don't ask me what "Jalla! Jalla!" stands for, because I really don't know. I don't even know if it is Arabic or Swedish (I guess the first). But what I do know is that this is a movie about Roro a man from Lebanese origin who works as a park attendant with his best friend Måns. Roro has a Swedish girlfriend, something that he doesn't want his parents to know , and is forced to marry a Lebanese/Swedish girl. He likes her but doesn't love her, but decides to marry her anyway to help her, because if she doesn't marry, her brother will send her back to Lebanon to their parents. Måns has entirely different problems. He has a relationship too, but because he's having potency problems, his relationships isn't exactly going very well. While Måns tries to fix his problem, using all kinds of methods, Roro has to try to keep up appearances while stalling the wedding plans and maintaining the relationship with his unknowing girlfriend.I must say that I didn't expect all that much about this movie. Normally a movie about mixed relationships or other multi-cultural society problems tends to get incredibly preachy. But not this movie, instead of showing how bad and racist the 'white man' is and how nice the 'black man', this movie has made a comedy out of it. And it works. The characters and the situations that they get in are believable, but more important also incredibly funny.The acting too was very nice. I had never heard of any of the actors before, but I must say that they all did a very nice job. Most surprising is probably that most of them has never played in any other movie before or since this one. Does that mean that these aren't professional actors? I don't know, but I sure hope to see them again soon, because I really had a very good time with this movie and I can't remember being annoyed by it once. That's also the reason why I give this movie at least a 7.5/10.

auxbla A simple, nice comedy. It's a typical story as you'd find in many American 'big-buck' productions, but because this is a Swedish-Lebanese production, it immediatly draw my attention. I always love to see unkown actors in good movies, they seem more 'real' than the settled actors.Very funny movie. Another nice Lebanese production (Lebanese-French actually) is 'West-Beyrouth' check it out, absolutely worth seeing!

Bogey Man Well this is pretty rare thing as I'm reviewing on Swedish comedy oriented drama, the genre I'm not so familiar with. I got the DVD for a birthday present and I probably would not have bought/rented/watched the film otherwise. The film is however pretty positive experience and recommended highly for most of the people.It tells the story of Swedish youths that are having little problems with relationships, relatives, impotence and other stuff. I won't tell too much about the plot but there are many things found in normal every day life, too, so I think many will be interested once they start to watch the film.The director is young and talented Josef Fares and many of his relatives also act in this film. The actors are mostly young people, like 1978-1982, and couple of older, too, but they all are very talented and natural. It took 30 days to shoot the film, and technically the film is very great as there are many different techniques used by the director and the story is also very interesting, and genuinely funny, not some stupid slapstick comedy.The themes of the film are mainly about love and the total misunderstanding of it. It shows that love cannot be "arranged" or planned, it is born once the two right people meet and there is no need for help from another parties. This is important issue and is more powerfully depicted in Jane Campion's masterpiece The Piano. There are also other things that are topical all the time, and the impotence of one character is one of them, despite I don't know how usual impotence is in these age groups of 30s or so. Well, that subject matter is also depicted warmly and with positivism and the subject matter of love is once again the main key for the problem. And many hilarious scenes about the impotence are also included!The dialogue and scenes are often hilarious and I found myself laughing very much throughout the film. This is positive cinema at its greatest, and therefore this can be recommended for everybody with interest in cinema. There are many great actors and actresses in the film and they really do their job fine, and this was feature debut for many of the actors. It is not visible, though!I give this positive piece of life 8/10 and high recommendations!

timelord-3 ***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** What sort of film do you get when you cross a Lebanese marriage, a Swedish girlfriend, a manic muscle head with a dog called Rambo and sexual impotence? You get the riotous romp, Jalla Jalla, a fantastic film from Lebanese born director Josef Fares.Best friends Mans and Roro are in their twenties and work as park attendants cleaning the duck pond and picking up dog s***, but nevertheless still think they are cool! Their lives stroll calmly and peacefully along until, suddenly, Mans can't get it up for his wife any more and Roro finds out he has only a week to avoid being married off to a good Lebanese girl by his father!Roro has a Swedish girlfriend he has been planning to introduce to his strict family but has lacked the courage until it's too late. Now his father has brokered an arrangement for him to marry the teenage Yasmin, and her brother seals the deal. Neither of the youngsters wants to get married but they pretend to agree to buy some time. Meanwhile Mans tries everything to correct his problem, from sexual games to whips, a penis enlarger and a gigantic dildo!All this might seem a little sick and perverted, but the style with which Josef handles it is to his credit. There is barely a moment in the film where you are not either laughing out loud or enjoying the wry comedy that comes from cultures colliding.Josef's real life dad plays the father in this film to his real life son, so Jalla Jalla is a real family affair. The dad is very funny, especially in the way he deals with any trouble. I have a 'gut' instinct he would be very handy in a fight!The film's title translates as 'Hurry! Hurry!' from its native Arabic and serves as a good description of the frenetic pace of this charming comedic look at cross-cultural clashes and love in times of integration. 9 out of 10.