My Son the Fanatic

The clash between religious fundamentalism and secular humanism gets a rare charge of common sense and compassion in this moving and hilarious gem directed by Udayan Prasad from a script by Hanif Kureishi (My Beautiful Laundrette). Parvez (Om Puri, heartbreakingly comic) is a middle-aged Pakistani immigrant in London whose dream of success has been reduced to driving a cab and occasionally hooking customers up with call girls when his mortgage payment is due. His son Farid rebels against his dad's decadence by hooking up with a fundamentalist Islamic cult. Embodying Farid's worst nightmares are the aptly named Schitz (a dourly brilliant Stellan Skarsgård), a ruthlessly hedonistic German entrepreneur, and Bettina (Sarah Jane Potts), the prostitute whom Parvez pimps to him. As Schitz regards Parvez as a kind of enabling Gunga Din, and Parvez begins to see Schitz as the great Satan, a Mona Lisa-like relationship develops between the harried hackney and Bettina. Although Fanatic's resolution may be a bit pat, and for a film about tolerance a little intolerant of Farid's fundamentalism, this is an uncompromising and uplifting affirmation of decency in the face of human extremes and extremism.

-- Peter Keough