Everyone enjoys a good laugh, and the summer cinema season is optimal for comedies. It’s just the right time to watch a movie like “Mossad” written and directed by Alon Gur Arye, a parody in the genre of the “Naked Gun” series that combined comedy and espionage made in the 1990s by the American ZAZ trio (Zucker, Abrahams, Zucker), or of the British films that had as a hero Johnny English (played by Rowan Atkinson), back on screen last year. I saw the movie yesterday evening at its first or second public screening, before the official premiere, in a cinema hall that was full with an audience that reacted enthusiastically. I can bet that a new Israeli cult comedy is about to be born, and that Britain’s secret agent Johnny English has now a serious Israeli rival in the secret agent Guy Moran (interpreted by Tsahi Halevi), equally ready to save the world risking to destroy it ten times.
The satirical arrows in this cinematic parody genre are usually directed towards two main directions – a “serious” theme from an area of activity with visibility and of major interest for the public (in this case the fight against terrorism and the secret wars led by the national spy organizations – Mossad, CIA) and the ‘serious’ movies related to this theme (here the action films and series such as ‘James Bond’, ‘Mission Impossible’, etc.). In order to succeed, such films should avoid dealing with any of the ‘sacred cows’ and should include as many jokes as possible with references to known realities or famous films, all packed in a story which aims to be coherent but is explicitly not taken too seriously. I think the screenwriter and director Alon Gur Arye has very honorably succeeded to meet these conditions and the result is a fun and engaging movie.
The pace of jokes and comic situations is considerable and these are present from the first frame before the generic to the last one at the final credits. I’m not convinced that everything will pass the screen to the international audiences, and as the screening had English subtitles I noticed that some adaptations are being attempted. The level of satire and critical humor dealing with the bombastic myths, local bureaucracy, or typology of secret war heroes did not seem to me to fall under anything else in the genre, the latest ‘Johnny English’, for example. I can say the same thing about the level of acting – Dvir Benedek and Tsahi Halevi are excellent in the key roles, the feminine presences are attractive and expressive, Tal Friedman creates an original role that makes us forget his appearances in popular comic television programs, and the Israeli screen and stage veterans Gila Almador and Ilan Dar act in the movie with obvious pleasure. They all have fun and make us have fun. The less successful parts of this film are related to the coherence of the action (there is no moment of real suspense) and the special effects that have suffered from a clear lack of funds, with results visible today in the era of spectacular graphic effects. These details cannot spoil too much of the pleasure I had watching “Mossad“, which has good chances to be the summer blockbuster in Israel, and to be successful elsewhere and beyond its first season of screening.