Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World

Highly recommended film. I never laughed so hard in my life... More updates later.

Here's a review from Roger Ebert:

In an opening scene of "Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World," Albert Brooks is summoned to a secret State Department meeting. It's chaired by Fred Dalton Thompson, who was a lawyer and actor before he was a U.S. Senator, and now plays one in the movies. The president is concerned about reaching the world's Muslims, Thompson explains. He's tried wars and spying, the usual stuff, and now he thinks maybe he might try humor. Brooks' assignment: Spend a month in India and Pakistan and write a 500-page report on what makes Muslims laugh.

That's the premise for a movie that might inspire a sequel titled, "Searching for Comedy in the Albert Brooks World." I mean that as a compliment. Brooks' movie has a lot of humor in it, but it's buried, oblique, throwaway, inside, apologetic, coded and underplayed. Midway through the movie, he does a free stand-up comedy show in New Delhi, and nobody laughs at anything. Rodney Dangerfield attacked sullen audiences aggressively: Folks! Folks! There's a guy up here on stage, telling jokes! Brooks is incapable of bluntness. He sidles up to his material and slinks away from it.
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The laughs tend to be hidden in the crevices. Brooks walks by offices every day, for example, filled with people who are answering the phone for big American corporations. There are two bigger laughs in the movie, one involving his dressing room for the standup show, the other involving his meeting with executives of the Al-Jazeera network. And some medium laughs. And a lot of chuckles. And a stubborn unwillingness to force the laughs. Brooks has a persona that apologizes for everything including being a persona. No matter how much you laugh, you get the feeling he wanted you to laugh less.

Because I have seen all of Brooks' movies, liked most of them and loved some, I was in training for "Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World." Veteran Brooks-watchers will be able to hear the secret melodies and appreciate the way he throws away even the throwaways. It's also interesting how he doesn't take cheap shots at India or Pakistan. When a Muslim woman asks him, "Are you a Jew?" he's set up for a slam-dunk, but he walks away from it. He acts not like a comic wiseguy but like a clueless citizen sent on a baffling State Department mission. Well, that's what he's playing.