Dubai is a major filming location for army of Bollywood’s movies and Pakistani TV Drama shows, but it’s Dubai’s close neighbour Abu Dhabi that was the location for the next film in a long line of movies about terrorism and 9/11. However, this one is different, so the makers will have us all believe.

Jamie Foxx is the star of the film and it is written by Micheal Mann. So what is so different about this movie? Well there has been a long standing belief in the Middle East that all recent American films about terrorism have some kind of Anti-Arab, Anti-Muslim flavour to them. I’d go further back in history and say there has been a long list of Hollywood films that have had that kind of vibe going back to True Lies, although you could say that film was more infamous for it’s turkey-esque quality than it’s political slant.

So this new film looks at and explores the joint American - Saudi Arabian fight against terrorism with Foxx playing an FBI agent who befrienda a Saudi Arabian counterpart following an attack on a US military installation in the Middle East. The film’s director Peter Berg broke his silence to tell Gulf News that:

“This is the first film that looks at the joint Arab and American fight against violent extremism. It is the first film that presents a meeting of Arabian and US culture working together for the benefit of all humanity.”

“It is a film about the friendship that develops between these two men from very different cultures. How they get to know and understand each other. It deals with terrorism because this is a reflection of our times. But it deals with it in a way never seen before”

Thanks for the marketing spin Peter. How can you deal with this issue in a new way? The problem has never been Hollywood, because to be frank if anyone believes anything coming out of Hollywood, Bollywood, Lollywood or planet Zog needs a good talking to. The problem is the attitude of the West towards the Arab world. Now before we all sit together and sing songs of praise for this new way of looking at terrorism, let’s not forget the recent past.

The Dubai Ports issue a few months back shows that there is an explicit distrust of Arabs in the US, to the point that a simple business deal caused mass hysteria on Capitol Hill. Will a simple film about how the Arabs have finally got the idea and started to fight terrorism change all this? The answer is No!!

Let’s forget about making movies about Arabs and terrorism and pick a different topic, maybe the stunning rate at which the Arabs have transformed Dubai into a megacity. Make a film about that!!

No related posts.