Mooz-lum Film Review

Mooz-lum Movie Review

by Brother Dash

On Sunday, February 13th I took the one hour journey to Times Square from my home in Central Jersey to attend a showing of the feature film Mooz-lum. I will not go into summary of the movie as you can easily find a synopsis yourself online but instead go into my thoughts.

The Story Idea

What I liked most about Mooz-lum was the general story idea. Having an African-American Muslim family as the focal point for the story helps to dispel the notion that Islam is foreign or “Un-American”. Anywhere from 30%-40% of all Muslims in America are actually African-American and this representation is rarely seen in media and entertainment.

Mooz-lum, directed by Qasim “Q” Basir, is semi-autobiographical and the authenticity of the story idea rang true if not the execution. The struggles of identity, belonging and faith represented in the main character, Tariq (Evan Ross), was clearly the director’s intended talking points. It was also clear that the film was trying to dispel stereotypes. This was actually both a good point but also the source of some of the film’s most glaring problems.

Performances

Unfortunately I found most of the actors to have portrayed their characters in a one dimensional manner. Whether this was a result of one dimensional writing or poor interpretive choices by the actors or both is unclear. The only exception is the brilliant performance of Nia Long as Tariq’s mother. She was absolutely riveting bringing peaks and valleys of emotion to the role unmatched by any of her co-stars. She also displayed a welcoming authenticity in her role as an African-American Muslim woman in particular. Her “Blackness” was not homogenized under an imagined Muslim archetype. I wish I could say the same for one of my favorite actors Roger Guenveur who played the role of Tariq’s father Hassan. Roger, a normally brilliant and underrated actor you will recognize from his many roles in Spike Lee’s films, was disappointingly one dimensional. It is as if the actor made a choice based on stereotype to play the cliché “stubborn overbearing religious father” living through his son thing. Other performances including Evan Ross’ “Tariq” were devoid of layers or personality except for brief flashes such as his confrontation with his sister Taqua (Kimberly Drummond) in the dorm hallway.  Kimberly, like Nia Long, showed a bit more nuance and personality on screen than the other actors so I would give some kudos to her for keeping the film moving a bit. I found Danny Glover’s Dean Francis to be underwhelming and one dimensional as well. Oddly you can tell that these actors “have chops” as they say. Mr. Glover needs no defending. Professor Jamaal (Dorian Missick) can obviously act. But perhaps the writing gave them little to work off of. If not for Nia Long, who carries this film and gave this writer many moments of ‘pride’, I would have been completely disappointed in the cast moreso for not living up to the potential I know they possess.

Directing

Q in his first film shows he has the makings of being a competent director but as a first effort I was left underwhelmed. The most annoying aspect of the directing may have been the use of flashbacks and forwards. These really encumbered the storytelling and was quite confusing.  The technique was also not clear in the beginning of the film. I initially thought the desaturation of color was simply a director on a budget! I would have also preferred some diversity with the visuals. I found the look of the film to be a persistent autumn. I understand budget concerns but seasonal changes would have been welcome, rain, snow, a beach, the lake, a bbq so as not to have visual boredom. Another less technical and more story related problem was how it was not clear to the audience until 3/4 of the way in the film that the “present day” was actually 2001 and not true present day 2011. This only became clear when Q introduced the Sept. 11th attacks as a plot device.

The Writing

Even with some of the underwhelming choices of the actors and understandable first time director gaffes the biggest issue with Mooz-lum is the writing. As an aside this is actually a tv and film industry wide problem in my opinion as we have moved away from excellence in storytelling.  I found the writing to be static only coming to life when Nia Long was onscreen or the Sept. 11th action moved the film along. As this is Q’s first film I will give him some leeway but he falls victim to the “pitfalls of my convictions.” Too much preaching! Too much explaining that the actions of a minority should not reflect on the majority. As a writer/director you want to do more showing and let the audience connect the dots.

Another key shortcoming of Mooz-lum has to do with the difference between real humans and characters. Justification. In real life if someone asks  “Why did you do that?” You can respond with “I don’t know…I just felt like it.” And that works in real life. But in stories your characters have to justify their actions. They do so either by dialogue or by a director that shows the audience the justification for “why a character is the way she is.” If your film does neither then the characters won’t ring true especially for “insiders” in he audience who perhaps ARE those characters in real life! Here are some examples:

1. The party in the hallway of the dorm. That doesn’t happen in college and certainly not with alcohol. I was a residence counselor myself (i.e. an insider). College parties are at frat houses, campus centers (no alcohol) or small ones inside of a student’s room in which case they’re usually so loud they get shut down by me the residence counselor!
2. It’s unlikely that the racist mob ring leader would be a guy that took World Religions 101. The only way you can write this believably is to justify it. For example perhaps you make the course a required one in order to graduate and the character resents having to even be there.
3. Tariq’s roommate and his fianceé (referred to as his “intended”) state they are going the “traditional” Muslim route in terms of marriage. If that’s the case then why is she alone in the room with him with the door closed! Why does the roommate say “we’ve been seeing each other since high school?” That’s not “traditional” at all. Now as a writer that’s fine you can script it in that way but you have to justify the contradiction. Also it is not plausible that a traditional Muslim girl who has a problem with Tariq drinking alcohol would flock to give out flyers at an alcohol party UNLESS and you know what I am going to say…you justify it.
4. What’s the deal with the issue the Dean has with Prof. Jamaal seeing his son. That is never explained.
5. The Dean is fired for a racist campus wide email. The plausibility of a Dean sending a racist campus wide email and getting fired for it so quickly is debatable even after 9/11but it would be plausible if the character was more thoroughly developed. Does the Dean have an issue with Islam because he’s an evangelical Christian and a reverend and his son converted to Islam and he blames Prof. Jamaal? That might make for a nice juxtaposition with the overbearing Muslim father. Maybe you have an overbearing Christian one as well thus leaving the audience to think “maybe we are more alike than not.”
6. Though a minor point the character of the school’s Principal played by comedian Azhar Usman was actually not totally authentic. He took over as Principal for his father. That would make Azhar a 2nd generation Pakistani American. Why does he have a Pakistani “uncle” accent? He would be much more americanized. If you do make the choice for him to be more “immigrant” than not then he certainly wouldn’t wear rolled up blue jeans under his Muslim garb as the Principal of the school.  Again this is a minor point that most never noticed but it’s those details that distinguish greatness from mediocrity and I personally want great films.
7. Muslim women don’t wear hijab in the house unless unrelated males are also present. It only perpetuates the stereotype that Muslim women must wear hijab 24/7. Unless Nia Long, the person, converted to Islam during the production and decided she did not want to appear on film uncovered there is no creative justification for this.

Character Development

I found pretty much all of the characters to be one dimensional. I remember saying to myself 1/2 way through the movie “Has Tariq even cracked a smile yet?” Roger Guenveur played the father Hassan extremely one dimensional and static. I also found that he needed to do more homework on how to play a Muslim father in a more nuanced and less stereotypical “Arab” way. No African-American Muslim male speaks with the inflections that Roger was employing especially in the way he kept pronouncing Allah. I also did not find the relationship between Nia and Roger’s characters believable. Why would this woman be with this man? And was he always this way? Why did they fall in love? Did they ever fall in love? We see no “husband/wife” moments between them even in the overused flashbacks.

Portrayal of Non Muslims

For what I am sure is an unintended consequence the portrayal of Non-Muslims came across as caricaturish and possibly offensive. Every Non-Muslim, with interesting exception of Tariq’s love interests (Catholic school girl flashback and College girlfriend) was basically a bigot. The Catholic school girl’s father, the white mob, Danny Glover’s character of the Dean, and of course Cedric the middle school tormentor he meets again at college were all to varying degrees islamophobes. Not only is this an impediment to the loftier goals the film has as far as tolerance and bridge building but it isn’t authentic. In the African-American community especially, as opposed to the greater society, Islam has enjoyed a relatively tolerant if not highly respected status. Furthermore many African-American families have some sort of Muslim family member either immediate or extended so to have EVERYONE as a bigot is just not authentic.

Final Thoughts

Sounds like a panned the movie huh? No not really. I’m a tough but hopefully fair critic. To me the film that I saw is in reality more of a 3rd or 4th draft. It needs several more revisions mostly related to the dialogue and character development but it should be supported just as the early films of Spike Lee or films by female directors needed to be supported.  Mooz-lum is a promising first effort. I supported this film moreso on social, cultural and religious grounds than for the story based on the marketing. At this stage we need to support these efforts but AND challenge each other to do even better. You can only ride the “support the cause” wagon for so long before the art is taken solely on its own creative merits. So in closing I would suggest you go see this film.