Infidel

The fact this is a film with an agenda ... doesn't make what it has to say untrue.

If you go to Cairo as a high-profile Christian blogger ... and effectively "preach Christianity" to a massive TV audience of diehard Muslims ... don't be surprised when your life suddenly takes a rapid turn for the worse. LOL.

Having said that, this is a film worth watching, not so much for the mains (turning in occasionally hammy or contrived performances), but for the concept overall, and particularly the performances of supporting characters such as "Ramzi."

The harshness and lawlessness of the Middle-East felt real (if a little cliched in places) ... but you are left in no doubt as to the eternal divides which exist between the (primarily) Judeo-Christian culture of the West ... and its counterparts of radical Islam elsewhere.

In short, if these themes interest you ... the film is worth checking out.

The haters will tell you that Infidel is a poorly made, heavy handed Christian movie. It's not. It's an international action thriller movie. American man travels to foreign country and is abducted and tortured for his beliefs. His wife works for the State Department and her bosses decline to help. She steps up and tries to rescue her husband.

Infidel contains the action and suspense fans of the genre want.

Yes, Doug, the main character, is a Christian, and he is abducted and tortured by Iranians. Yes, that does happen in real life. In fact persecution of Christians goes on everyday in Muslim countries. The haters are getting their shorts in a wad, not over real life human suffering, but over the depiction of that suffering on screen.

There is no heavy handed Christian proselytizing in this movie. It's not a Bond film, but it's satisfying as a representative of the genre.

Jim Caviezel is, as ever handsome and charismatic. Claudia Karvan, as his wife is charming and lovable, as she should be. Hal Ozsan is very good as the torturer.

Having lived in the Middle East, I was thoroughly impressed by Infidel. There were far more well portrayed and peaceful Muslim characters in this film than there were evil. That's how it is in the Middle East. Most all citizens are sick of being repressed by their governments and their kings, princes and clerics. That was well reflected here and the characters felt like real people. I credit the writer/director, all of the very talented actors and the cinematographer. This is easily one of the more realistic Middle Eastern thrillers I've seen and my family and I were very impressed by it.

We enjoyed this movie. It's a pretty realistic story of a man kidnapped and imprisoned for speaking about religion in the middle east. We are so lucky in the USA to have free speech. Many people here take our freedoms for granted.

Caviezel is a Christian blogger that gets kidnapped in Iran. Probably not a favorite movie for the left, but a decently told tale of faith and rescue.