Journey to Mecca (2009)

Director:

Bruce Neibaur

Writers:

Carl Knutson (writer)
Bruce Neibaur (written by)

Release Date:

7 January 2009 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

One of the greatest travelers in human history, 21 year old law student Ibn Battutah set out alone to...

Plot Keywords:

Place Name In Title

Cast

Chems-Eddine Zinoune	...	Ibn Battutah
Hassam Ghancy	...	Highwayman
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Nabil Elouahabi	...	Hamza
Nadim Sawalha	...	Ibn Mustapha

Runtime:

45 min

Country:

USA | Canada

Language:

English | Arabic

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.44 : 1

Filming Locations:

Morocco

Company:

Desert Door Productions

Using Ibn Battuta's name to sell soft-core documentary

Disappointing. Really. From all the interesting, adventurous and cool things that happened in Ibn Batutta's life none were used. An average person will have a distorted view of Ibn Batutta. If I hadn't read his Book I would too. I feel that the creators of this movie cleverly used his name to sell a documentary on Hajj. Even there too - Hajj is just sloppily touched on and the movie abruptly ends. There is no real in-sight into how Muslims used to live or how Ibn Batutta lived - you go in knowing nothing and come out knowing less. I hear that a lot of 'research' was done but apart from the footage of the Ka'ba (which you just need permission and a camera for) I don't see any of it. There was so many obvious glitches (like every man in the Great Caravan having mustaches instead of beards and the women walking around with their hair loose under small scarves - clearly extras from the eastern film industry and in no way properly portraying the style of Muslims couple of hundred years ago.)Anything you saw in a Moroccan film you'll see here.I don't know what research these creators are talking about. From a plot point of view this movie was bland. We see Zinoune travel through the boring, empty,dry desert most of the time. There was no real substance or story-line. I was expecting more considering how exciting the trailer and synopsis were made out to be. The only good thing is that Muslims aren't portrayed as mass-murderers and the Hajj has accurate details (we'll pretend we never saw everyone coming up from Sijda without the Imaam saying 'Allaah-hu-Akbar'). In short - a highly-pumped, overrated, pointless movie with no idea what it wants to be or where its going. A loose cannon. I can't believe that we're supposed to believe that they actually did research about Ibn Batutta, ancient Arabia or Hajj. You'd have to know absolutely nothing about Islaam to watch this film - if that's you, then go for it, but if you know even a little bit - take a pass. Read his book; it was way better.