The Infidel (Josh Appignanesi, 2010)

Omid Djalili stars as Mahmud Nasir, a regular Joe East End Muslim, albeit with some anger management issues, who gets rather upset the day he discovers that he's in fact adopted and was born Jewish. This when his son is about to marry the daughter of a fundamentalist preacher.
The combination of cheeky roly-poly Djalili and David Baddiel as writer leads one to expect a barrel of bellylaughs, which never really quite materialises as the script simultaneously wrestles with The Big Issue it has taken on, namely ethnic/religious identity and tolerance. To be fair, it gives this a fair bash until feelgood needs take precedence and we're on our way to a fairytale ending. You also can't help feeling that knowing that there's an Iranian and a Jew behind it makes it rather to easy for them to safely indulge in a swathe of cheap stereotyping of both sides for titters. Still, Djalili's indignant irascibility makes the most of the neater one-liners.

6/10