Thriller? Nah. Suspenseful? Kinda. Overall, this film was confusing. Maybe because I had to read the English subtitles and at times they disappeared from the screen too quickly. There was definitely a mystery going on here. The characters were decent - ice cold lawyer chick, loving irresponsible dad, controlling and disapproving mother/mother-in- law and an evil time-obsessed gangster. I had a hard time believing the married couple - Oded and Dafna - were really in love. They seemed to have no chemistry in their scenes together. Muki, the deplorable bad guy, played his role quite well because you could easily hate him. The back and forth between the crime/cop interrogation and the unraveling of what happened was somewhat disjointed. If I looked away for a moment, I usually had to replay that scene to figure out what was going on. Overall, the acting was decent. The script was somewhat intriguing, but there are some definite slow scenes that dragged on. The ending had the right kind of closing and was satisfying.
9 Reviews
Too complicated, too much
lenusik_9925 November 2016
Oded is in too much trouble. Business situation leads tax police and cruel thugs after him. His business partner is too nervous, and jealous (at some point expresses directly that Oded's wife should have chosen him) mother-in-law never took him seriously... Now meet his wife: very smart and courageous, yet she knows absolutely nothing of his troubles with business and the thugs. The bastards in the movie are too nasty. 50% of the plot would have been enough to tell the story, there is too much of everything, you lose track but you start predicting the main outcome.
In short, if you are looking for a thriller to watch this will do, but prepare for unnecessary complications to come with it.
In short, if you are looking for a thriller to watch this will do, but prepare for unnecessary complications to come with it.
Hard to follow
Otte122 April 2020
What seemed like a good story was hard to follow with the haphazard editing. The movie jumps from scene to scene without any logical cohesiveness. While you are trying to figure out who's who in a scene it has skipped two more scenes. You quickly lose the ability to define who is good or bad and after a while you do not even care.
Overcomplicated thriller
ivan_matyus26 December 2019
who is ... who?
tommer9 November 2020
Warning: Spoilers
In almost every scene , new characters are introduced. they can be either bad or good guys. they are either teaming up with another person...or not.. this makes it impossible to follow the story and also hard to root for one person. who hired the private investigator? and who's side is he on? who hired the lawyer? and who's side is he on? what does the sister do? why? who is out for revenge? what kind of revenge?
Intriguing Israeli thriller
tony-70-6679202 April 2016
Before you write a review, you're warned that if you write a spoiler without warning readers, you'll be blacklisted and all your future reviews will be blocked from appearing. How ironic, then, that IMDb has spoiled viewers' enjoyment of Benny Fredman's excellent debut movie by giving away too much in its three line synopsis.
The film is set in Jerusalem. It starts with Dafna (the coolly beautiful Mali Levi) torching her husband's music and video store in which the husband lies dead, gun in hand. It appears to be a suicide, hence the title, but a very unorthodox police detective suspects Dafna may have killed hubbie, a loser who was massively in debt to Muki, a terrifying gangster who's given him a tight deadline to pay up. Muki threatens not only him but his family.
Muki operates from a junk yard. He has a bizarre obsession with William Tell and the apple on the head of Tell's son, and is attended by two frightening thugs even balder than himself. One of them has no right eye (when I saw it the film was entitled "Eye for an Eye.") He's not Eyeless in Gaza but Eyeless in Jerusalem, and how he came to lose the eye provides the film's most gruesome scene.
To say more would spoil your enjoyment. What makes the film so intriguing is that it hops around in time, and you're never sure what Dafna is up to or how she feels about her husband (her mother's attitude is "Divorce the bum.")
All in all a first-rate thriller, though perhaps a tad too long.
The film is set in Jerusalem. It starts with Dafna (the coolly beautiful Mali Levi) torching her husband's music and video store in which the husband lies dead, gun in hand. It appears to be a suicide, hence the title, but a very unorthodox police detective suspects Dafna may have killed hubbie, a loser who was massively in debt to Muki, a terrifying gangster who's given him a tight deadline to pay up. Muki threatens not only him but his family.
Muki operates from a junk yard. He has a bizarre obsession with William Tell and the apple on the head of Tell's son, and is attended by two frightening thugs even balder than himself. One of them has no right eye (when I saw it the film was entitled "Eye for an Eye.") He's not Eyeless in Gaza but Eyeless in Jerusalem, and how he came to lose the eye provides the film's most gruesome scene.
To say more would spoil your enjoyment. What makes the film so intriguing is that it hops around in time, and you're never sure what Dafna is up to or how she feels about her husband (her mother's attitude is "Divorce the bum.")
All in all a first-rate thriller, though perhaps a tad too long.
Very Difficult to Watch
dinasilverpalmdesert25 June 2021
Well , liked it...
RosanaBotafogo13 June 2021
I really enjoyed this Israeli plot, a police thriller that envelops and absorbs us, the stories told backwards, cool photography and great acting, round script, convincing excellent production, but I was hoping for a plot Twist from his special son... Well , liked it...
Usual Suicide-pect
kosmasp21 June 2021
Losing a loved one (much more so a husband) is not something that can be taken lightly ... on the other hand, when that said husband has not been entirely upfront and honest with one ... but I'm getting ahead of myself. Something that the movie is doing too in a sense. Just to unravel what has happened up until that point.
Not just because there is another movie that is similar to this plot wise (one of the best thrillers in the 90s), you probably will be able to guess where this is heading. And while this probably never reaches those heights for you ... I'd argue that it is still quite the good movie and thriller. Not sure I'd call it an action thriller ... but then again I'd leave that up to others to make up their own mind. May be a bit too complicated for its own good, but it still works if you let it.
Not just because there is another movie that is similar to this plot wise (one of the best thrillers in the 90s), you probably will be able to guess where this is heading. And while this probably never reaches those heights for you ... I'd argue that it is still quite the good movie and thriller. Not sure I'd call it an action thriller ... but then again I'd leave that up to others to make up their own mind. May be a bit too complicated for its own good, but it still works if you let it.
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