Critic Reviews

Time of Favor, which boasts a haunting score, is an unflinching, complex portrait of a modern Israel that is rarely seen on-screen.

The tone is balanced, reflective and reasonable. Avni is a major star in Israel, and he is an actor with world-class charm.

One of the most successful, provocative and intensely contemporary of Israeli films, so much so that to watch it is to feel the country having a passionate argument with itself.

Despite a couple of low-budget, rookie-director rough spots, this fascinating look at Israel in ferment feels as immediate as the latest news footage from Gaza and, because of its heightened, well-shaped dramas, twice as powerful.

Emerges as an intelligent portrayal of the repercussions of single-minded religious fervor, and of the way the willingness to suffer for a cause does not necessarily translate into selfless acts.

Flawed but engrossing thriller. Highly atmospheric, it gets its charge by dramatizing religious millennialism in a region that is the world epicenter of irrationality.

Interestingly for an Israeli movie, the bombers are not Palestinians -- they're young, ultra-Orthodox fanatics.

Ultimately, writer-director Joseph Cedar has created a film that resembles a subtitled very special episode of "JAG."

A capable, soulful thriller with a love story as steamy as is possible when its lead characters are Orthodox Jews.

Despite its rare look at the tensions between religious and secular soldiers in a settlement on the occupied West Bank, it's a pretty static, by-the-book drama that would be insufferable without the sullen heat of Tinkerbell and Avni.