The Band's Visit

AroView: Sweet and sensitive Israeli comedy following an Egyptian police band who get way laid in a small Israeli town and unexpectedly break down cultural barriers with the local residents.

A comfortable, soft-sell approach to bridging strained relations between Arab nations and the Jewish state, the personal stakes are never raised enough to effectively sharpen its very worthy point, but there’s plenty to engage; English used as the bridging language, the soulful faces of the doleful band-members, and the little nuggets of gentle farce, distinctively played against the hazy, parched landscape of the Israeli desert.

“Has an irresistibly tragic and romantic undertow.” ~Andrew O’Hehir, Salon