'The Reluctant Fundamentalist'
A; Drama
Director: Mira Nair
Cast: Riz Ahmed, Kate Hudson, Shabana Azmi
Rating:u00a0

Director Mira Nair takes every word of every page of the 2007 book of the same name and makes it as superficial and melodramatic as humanly possible. While the book was known for its open ending that left the true nature of its protagonist ambiguous, the film version pretty much milks the tempest in the teapot. Riz Ahmed stars as Changez, a Pakistani man who leaves his family behind to become a top dog at Wall Street but is disillusioned by the post 9/11 atmosphere in America. He is routinely selected for random strip searches at airports and harassed by cops on the street simply for being brown. His unstable American girlfriend first puts up some offensive art gallery about his Pakistani heritage and then leaves him.

Riz Ahmed and Kate Hudson in Mira Nair's 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist'