Looking for a smart, anti-fundamentalist thriller? Try Shan Khan's juicy melodrama, HONOUR

This is the kind of movie I would refer to (if I used that sort of language) as hot shit. The new melodrama/ thriller about the terribly constricted lives of certain Pakistanis -- female variety, of course -- who dwell in London is not exactly a feminist film (the word is never even used here). Yet by its very nature and the story it tells so well, HONOUR, written and directed by Shan Khan, is hugely feminist. It's no stretch to suggest that, by its conclusion, it will have turned you to a raging, anti-fundamentalist feminist, too.

The film's clever construction gets an A-plus in my book. Beginning with a rancid, racist event on a moving train that shames us, even if we don't quite know why it is there or what it means to the movie as a whole, this first full-length film, written and directed by Mr. Khan (shown at right), turns out to know exactly what it is doing at each moment. If, at the climax, the filmmaker relies a bit too much to the standard and cliched, so good has he given us up to that point that you'll probably go along for the rest of the ride. (The denouement -- which answers an earlier question you'll have asked -- is quietly fraught and absolutely priceless.)

In between all this, because the filmmaker moves back and forth in time, we're not always sure where we are. Yet so cleverly has he managed his plot (and our fears) that we follow along, eventually understanding the entirety of this nasty family saga that -- due to the increasing number of honour killings against Muslim women -- seems all too true and twice as disgusting. (Honour may be one of the most anti-fundamentalist films you'll ever see.)

Our heroine, Mona, played with zest and finally -- considering all that is done to her by her disgusting family -- a finely controlled fury by the beautiful actress Aiysha Hart (two photos above and above, left), is a successful realtor in love with one of her co-workers, Tanvir (played by the handsome, full-lipped Nikesh Patel, above, right). Tanvir, however, has been promised since birth to another. When word gets out in the com-munity about the lovers' plans to run away together, while Tanvir's life is threatened, it is Mona, being a Muslim woman, who pays the dearest price.

When we first meet her stern mother (Harvey Virdi, above) and angry brother Kasim (Faraz Ayub, below, right), we don't much like them. Soon, however, they do something so rotten and shocking that we hold our breath in hopes that what we've seen somehow did not happen. Via his fast-paced use of back-and-forth, past-and-present, the filmmaker keeps us on tenterhooks so that we don't always know in what time frame things are taking place. This can be confusing, but so solidly has Khan hooked us that we stick with him until we learn the answers.

With the introduction of a bounty hunter, hired to find and bring back the missing Mona, the film turns into a kind of chase thriller. Our bounty hunter (played by the fine Paddy Considine, below) has guilt issues of his own with which to deal, and soon Mona has an ally of sorts.

How all this works itself out makes, on one level, for a fast-moving, crackerjack thriller. On another level, it simply adds ammunition to the arsenal of those of us who would like to see this kind of cretinous, fundamentalist thinking wiped off the face of the earth. Good luck. We've got about as much of a chance of turning around Muslim fundamentalist attitudes in Britain, as we have of bringing real and necessary gun control to these United States.

But at least we've got smart movies with a mission like this one to keep us entertained, even as our minds are made to consider what's happening in our culture and the world around us. In fact, this is probably the best feminist melodrama thriller since the amazing French film, Chaos, from 2001. (That's the younger and kinder of Mona's two brothers, played by Shubham Saraf, below.)

From 108 Media and running a tight, just-right 104 minutes (there's hardly a single moment you'd want to see cut), Honour opens this Friday in theaters and via VOD. Here in New York City, it plays the Cinema Village, and it will also hit one of the Laemmle theaters in the L.A. area soon (date and theater are yet to be determined). Don't let this one get lost in the usual, Oh-but-there-are-just-too-many-movies-to-see! shuffle.... If you're so inclined, try it via Vimeo-on-Demand.

Dani Menkin's and Yonatan Nir's DOLPHIN BOY is all about healing -- on several levels

DOLPHIN BOY -- the new movie opening this week by Israeli filmmakers Dani Menkin  and Yonatan Nir -- is such a cheapo, hand-held, do-it-by-your-bootstraps kind of documentary that you almost start fidgeting within the first minute or two of screen time. But because those minutes include the subject at hand, a 17-year-old young fellow named Morad, who when we meet him, below, has been traumatized by a physical beating almost unto death, we stay focused.

This beating came via another young man (and his friends) who had found what he deemed an inappropriate text on his sister's cell phone and decided that something untoward had been going on. It had not, but Morad was almost killed nonetheless. When we meet him, he has recovered physically but not mentally nor emotionally. He's unreachable.

Menkin (at left) and Nir (below, right) go out of their way to show us how Morad's doctors are flummoxed by their inability to breakthrough to the boy. And so, in a kind of last resort, because they have heard that "dolphin therapy" can sometimes reach the unreachable, off Morad goes, with his family's blessing, to an area by the sea in which dolphins are kept in what seem to be as ideal conditions as possible, without being exactly "free."

Fortunately Morad comes from what appears to be a well-to-do Muslim family. His father, when the movie opens, has already sold much of his property to pay for his son's rehabilitation.

The dolphins, with their seemingly innate kindness, do their job and improvement comes, if slowly. We watch and marvel as, bit by bit, the boy begins connecting with the world again. At around the six-month period, we hear about (but do not see) the reunion with his mother, which, as described, is something else. Here, the primal becomes physical.

Eventually we visit the courthouse with the family and see the criminals. It's shocking, after all the peace and serenity we've been experiencing, to see the stupidity, anger and inhumanity of the attackers. Then it's back to the dolphin base. Interestingly, as much good as the dolphins do, the movie does not concentrate on them. Rather, it's Morad and those around him that gain our keenest attention.

Dad -- above, praying -- is ever-present and loving; mom, too. Morad even becomes close with one of the young female workers (shown below) at the base, and a relationship develops. Without pushing the idea, the movie begins to mirror life and its complexi-ties: relationships, coming to terms with the past and with family.

We learn more about Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, too, and how, as Morad's doctor explains, it makes you acutely aware of what violence can do to the human body and mind. Even as Morad grows more articulate and "normal," coming to terms with any thoughts of that traumatic time seems out of the question. Yet that, finally, must be the goal.

To that end everything from hypnotism to a startling new device to physically make the trauma symptoms cool down are used to help Morad. I don't know that this movie ever actually uses the term itself, but Dolphin Boy is all about healing. Healing Morad, healing the past, and -- as Morad's family are Muslims and the film takes place in Israel under the helm of Israeli filmmakers, maybe even healing the Arab/Jew conundrum.

Dolphin Boy is a lovely movie. And if those dolphins, as important as they are, finally seem the least of it, Morad himself is a fellow you're unlikely to forget. The film opens this Friday here in New York City at the Quad Cinema. I don't know of any other theatrical playdates, but surely we'll see the movie come to DVD, VOD and/or cable/streaming eventually.