Salami Aleikum

Salami Aleikum is a German movie with a fresh look, although that's mostly snaffled from Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain. It's got some great, fresh actors such as lead characters Navid Akhavan, Anna Böger and Michael Niavarni (the Iranian father). Unfortunately, like so many German comedies, it's simply not funny. Bringing odd people into weird situations and filming them in a comicbook style simply won't automatically lead to great comedy.

The story's about the struggles of a young Iranian immigrant to Germany. He's a bit of a wet shirt who rather knits and dreams himself away into Bollywood-esquire fantasies rather than work for his dad as a butcher. Then he gets marooned in the boondocks in East Germany (or basically, just anywhere in East Germany), where the native hillbillies first treat him like a second-rate human. Then they imagine him to be a wealthy Persian investor who will buy their run-down textiles factory, and treat him like the prince of Persia. He also finds his dream woman, who is about four times his size because she took hormones when she was an athlete before the fall of the wall (incidentally, in 1989 the the actress playing that role was actually 12 year old).

So we basically get to meet all sorts of looney people, but it never adds up to good entertainment. I gave up on the movie after about an hour. But I'm hopeful that the director will find a better script next time -- good luck.