**SPOILERS** Well meaning but somewhat poorly constructed movie that has to do with relationships between Israelis and Palestinians and a 20 year-old rabbinical student Mendy, Oren Rehany, and 19 year old Ukrainian hooker Sasha, Tehelet Semei. Sasha immigrated to Israel to find work and later get a passport so she can travel to where she really wan't to live and spend the rest of her life in the United States.
The movie "Holy Land" has some of the best scenes ever filmed in the holy and old city of Jerusalem with it's many holy sites like the Wailing Wall Mount of Olives and the Dome of the Rock. The movie also shows the city's seedy areas that you won't see or find in any official Israeli Government tourist guide advertising it. Mendy suffering from growing pains is obsessed with reading, or better yet looking at the pictures, girlie magazines. This has the principle of his rabbinical school Reb Nocham, Alon Dahan,suggests that he go out one evening after school to the red light district of Tel Aviv and relive all his pent up pressures and tensions by having a tryst with a hooker. Mendy going to this strip joint called "The Love Boat" meets and falls in love with one of the strippers there Sasha who later Mendy finds out to his shock and surprise, like he couldn't figure it out in under ten seconds after he first met her, that she's a also a part-time hooker.
Mendy also meets at "The Love Boat" what turns out to be Sasha's boyfriend a transplanted American Jew and combat photographer Mike, Saul Stein. Mike after you and Mendy get to really know him, when he finally sobers up, is a real swell and good natured guy who'ed give you the shirt right off his back if you needed it and if he still has one on to give. Mendy gets caught up with Sahsha who he later finds out, after having a violent falling out with her,is only stringing him along. Mendy also gets involved in Jerusalem with Mike by working as a bartender at his nightclub "Mikes Place". There he meets a whole bunch of shandy characters like an Israeli ultra-nationalist who calls himself The Exterminator, Aryeh Monskona. Another one of Mike's regular costumers that he meets is the very friendly and personable Palestinian Arab to both Mike and The Exterminator Razi,Albert Ilo. Razi will later be responsible for Mendy's and some score of other Israelis deaths in a suicide, not by Razi himself of course, bus bombing.
The fine acting in the movie "Holy Land" more then makes up for it's somewhat disjointed story-line. Both Mendy and Sasha, Oren Rehany & Tehelet Semei,really click together in all the scenes that their in even though there's no sex at all in them. In that Mendy, being brought up as a very religious and orthodox Jew, is just too bashful and intimidated by the very experienced and aggressive non-Jewish Shasa.
Saul Stein steals almost every scene that he's in the movie with his multi- layered portrayal of bar owner and all around good time guy Mike. Stein does a very good as well as Jewish or kosher imitation of Hollywood acting legend Humphrey Bogart who he's obviously styled after. In the end Mendy sees that the life he choose as a free and swinging young secular Israeli isn't for him with him breaking up with Shasa and saying good-by to Mike. Mendy, leaving his broken heart behind in Jerusalem, hops on a bus going back to his parents home outside Tel Aviv but sadly and tragically never makes it out alive of Jerusalem's city limits.
The movie "Holy Land" has some of the best scenes ever filmed in the holy and old city of Jerusalem with it's many holy sites like the Wailing Wall Mount of Olives and the Dome of the Rock. The movie also shows the city's seedy areas that you won't see or find in any official Israeli Government tourist guide advertising it. Mendy suffering from growing pains is obsessed with reading, or better yet looking at the pictures, girlie magazines. This has the principle of his rabbinical school Reb Nocham, Alon Dahan,suggests that he go out one evening after school to the red light district of Tel Aviv and relive all his pent up pressures and tensions by having a tryst with a hooker. Mendy going to this strip joint called "The Love Boat" meets and falls in love with one of the strippers there Sasha who later Mendy finds out to his shock and surprise, like he couldn't figure it out in under ten seconds after he first met her, that she's a also a part-time hooker.
Mendy also meets at "The Love Boat" what turns out to be Sasha's boyfriend a transplanted American Jew and combat photographer Mike, Saul Stein. Mike after you and Mendy get to really know him, when he finally sobers up, is a real swell and good natured guy who'ed give you the shirt right off his back if you needed it and if he still has one on to give. Mendy gets caught up with Sahsha who he later finds out, after having a violent falling out with her,is only stringing him along. Mendy also gets involved in Jerusalem with Mike by working as a bartender at his nightclub "Mikes Place". There he meets a whole bunch of shandy characters like an Israeli ultra-nationalist who calls himself The Exterminator, Aryeh Monskona. Another one of Mike's regular costumers that he meets is the very friendly and personable Palestinian Arab to both Mike and The Exterminator Razi,Albert Ilo. Razi will later be responsible for Mendy's and some score of other Israelis deaths in a suicide, not by Razi himself of course, bus bombing.
The fine acting in the movie "Holy Land" more then makes up for it's somewhat disjointed story-line. Both Mendy and Sasha, Oren Rehany & Tehelet Semei,really click together in all the scenes that their in even though there's no sex at all in them. In that Mendy, being brought up as a very religious and orthodox Jew, is just too bashful and intimidated by the very experienced and aggressive non-Jewish Shasa.
Saul Stein steals almost every scene that he's in the movie with his multi- layered portrayal of bar owner and all around good time guy Mike. Stein does a very good as well as Jewish or kosher imitation of Hollywood acting legend Humphrey Bogart who he's obviously styled after. In the end Mendy sees that the life he choose as a free and swinging young secular Israeli isn't for him with him breaking up with Shasa and saying good-by to Mike. Mendy, leaving his broken heart behind in Jerusalem, hops on a bus going back to his parents home outside Tel Aviv but sadly and tragically never makes it out alive of Jerusalem's city limits.