The Dealers

Maybe because most Israeli films need a subsidy from the same government panel, sometimes they come out quite alike. Released only a couple of weeks after GOD'S NEIGHBORS, THE DEALERS is also about young fellows who never stop smoking cannabis and one of whom is involved with a girl whose lifestyle is incompatible with theirs. The former film made a point of being set in Bat Yam, the latter makes a point of being set in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramot. Ramot is a residential neighborhood, not on the tourist route although at one time tourists used to come to see the odd experimental beehive-like housing development which is (still) set into the side of a hill there. In GOD'S NEIGHBORS, the protagonists' driving motivation was to do the Lord's will and keep the neighborhood free of bad influences, and there were a couple of wise rabbis on hand to hint that violence was not the way to do that. In THE DEALERS, the protagonists' driving motivation seems to be merely to get high and stay high, so it's harder to enlist the sympathy of an average audience. (On TV, THE DEALERS was publicized as a ready-made cult movie.) Here too there are indeed minor characters on hand to provide wise advice-- a gruff basketball coach, a door-to- door proselytizer, and an aging mysterious but harmless-seeming underworld henchman. But for most of the movie, the protagonists' response to good advice seems to be to go home and smoke some more dope. There is nothing wrong with the acting, the dialogue, or the visual side, but the constantly stoned protagonists are not particularly witty or good-hearted so the film depends on a couple of points of suspense to carry it along:-- are the guys going to get into more trouble than they can handle? and meanwhile, will they even be in condition to show up for the big basketball game?