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The Stone Merchant
The Merchant (Harvey Keitel) is a Westerner. A merchant dealing in precious stones from Afganistan and Turkey. He's above suspicion. In truth, the "Stone Merchant" is a Christian convert into Islam. He's rich, cultured, fascinating. Leda (Jane March) is a successful woman who works as Head of the Public Relations for a big company. She's married to Alceo, a professor at the Sapienza University, specialized in the history of terrorist movements. Alceo is on a wheel chair. He lost his legs in the attack to the American Embassy in Nairobi in 1998. Shahid is a terrorist. Now he's planning an attack along the English Channel. Their lives, their destinies cross in Turkey, where Leda and Alceo are on holiday. And the plot will go on to Rome and Turin till the epilogue of the attack on the ferry boat.
| Release : | 2006 |
| Rating : | 4.2 |
| Studio : | Medusa Produzione, |
| Crew : | Director of Photography, Costume Design, |
| Cast : | Harvey Keitel Jane March Jordi Mollà F. Murray Abraham Paco Reconti |
| Genre : | Drama Thriller |
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Reviews
To me, this movie is perfection.
A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.
It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.
It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.
Horrible. The worst possible script. Deplorable acting. A political agenda straight out of the Religious Right. Oh, and worst of all, a mostly naked (shivver!) Harvey Keitel. (That last comment was a spoiler, but it will have saved your eyeballs in case you thought of watching it.) Keitel is supposedly an Italian who was raised in Afghanistan, which is where he converted to Islam. Yet, he speaks with a Chicago accent. F. Murray Abraham is an Islamic terrorist who we can't help feel is really a Jewish man playing his idea of a Muslim. The writer(s?) definitely had an political ax to grind. This is the sort of drivel that keeps us hating one another.Did I mention this was bad? Or that it had no redeeming qualities whatsoever? Bad.
The Stone Merchant -A romance thriller with political implications.Ambitous Italian film that wants to show the menace of the religious extremists -but ends up being a lame romance between Jane March and Harvey Keitel.Keitel seduces March I guess to utilize her vehicle as a car bomb- I am still not certain why she was needed to execute their plot-except to have topless footage of her or something.F.Murray Abraham plays an extremist who seems to be running a terrorist cell in Europe.Jori Molla is March's cuckold hubby who is a qaudraplegic cuz of a terrorist attack.Molla is obsessed with the terrorists and at one point shows footage of stoning and a hand being cut off.The movie wants to be an important statement about the problems of religious extremism-but is ruined by a lame romance and plot holes. C-
Even amateurs produce better movies these days. The dubbing of the characters is so awful it reminds you of the sleazy Italian movies of the 70s and 80s where content had no place in the movie, and sex scenes were everything. This is repeated in this movie, and makes it devoid of any artistic merit. The characters' motives are masked at best, and there are too many uncomfortable 'coincidences'.The acting is bad beyond belief. And the subject is not researched at all. A 13 year old history student can teach a lot more than our 'professor' in the movie. There is no knowledge of the way Islam spread. The professor equates Ottoman Empire with the Moors and the previous Caliphates, where in many cases these were antagonistic entities. And the professor forgets to mention that the wars between Muslims and Christians started with the crusades where the Vatican tried to 'repossess' the 'Holy land'; an extension of the wars fought by the Roman Empire. The movie also fails to state that the Inquisition and the church terrorized people for centuries, and it was only by repeated defeats of the Crusaders at the hands of Muslim army that the break in Vatican rule materialized, and the flow of scientific, philosophical and artistic material from Muslim countries into the Church dominated lands began leading to 'Renaissance' and the Age of Enlightenment.F. Murray Abraham is over the top as usual anyway, but the only regret is having Harvey Keitel staining his image in this manner. My take on this movie: pure garbage.
I'm a fairly passive critic of movies usually, but I would have guilt-ridden nights if I didn't do my part in exposing the crassness of this particular film.The opening scene, though not particularly original, looks somewhat promising -but it all comes crashing down from there. The B (or C) rate acting is exposed from the first word uttered and the cinematography is rushed and confused. But that's a "relatively" minor fault. The plot is so savagely simplistic, churning out such skewed analyses as 'But not all Muslims are terrorists -Yes, but most terrorists are Muslims' to deliver it's never-trust-a-Muslim message, you wonder how it made it through even the most bigoted film censors. I am ashamed to say that I watched until the end, with the faint hope that maybe this was actually going to turn into one big joke aimed at exposing a narrow-minded western understanding of Islam. But alas, the film stays its course until its dismal, racist end.Its one redeeming factor is that it is so plain bad, that it serves as an own-goal to those half-wit neo-cons.Harvey! What were you thinking when you read the script?! What a hopeless waste of money.
