Motompa Go in cold, and you're likely to emerge with your blood boiling. This has to be seen to be believed.

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Allissa .Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

dirkblaze Saw this at the Sundance FF and had the privilege of sitting through a Q&A with the director, early one morning (a good time to attend films at Sundance, everyone else is asleep until noon." I can tell you that not absolutely everything in this documentary is completely "unscripted," but the substance absolutely is. Most documentaries are like that.A great look at life in occupied Palestinian. Answers the question: "what's it like to get to work through road blocks (through which you cannot drive a car) every 5 miles or so..." Interesting, sad, funny - you will laugh out loud, also hopeful, human, tragic.Follows the life of a "taxi" driver, but several notable Palestinian and other figures are interviewed (in the back of the taxi). A story you will hear nowhere else.I recommend it!

jekylisland You know growing up in America, always seeing this conflict from the point of view of one side, in sound bite-sized doses, you'd think that Palestinians are nothing but a pack of murderous savages who deserve to be bombed, blown up, bulldozed, economically choked and harassed at every opportunity. The truth, as always is a bit more complex than that. Here we see what the day to day life and see them as humans with diverse viewpoints. It turns out a lot of them are against violence too and just want to live in a normal way.Too bad though that wiser heads (on both sides) cannot beat out the entrenched power structures that actually keep their power through violence and the ongoing threat of it.Politics aside though its quite entertaining to watch the young man driving the bus, as he is quite resourceful in his attempts to avoid both the Israelis and the PA( not always successful mind you). As he wheels and deals across the land and runs into all sorts of trouble and that to him is just a normal day, trying to live. I'd recommend this to anyone who likes to observe a different culture in the day to day.

ocstart A fine documentary on the people who ride with a Palistian "Transit" driver. A deep in-site in to the people, and their thoughts and feelings on day to day life. From the smuggling of cucumbers and CD's, the roadblocks, to their views on Bush, terrorists, Israel, and the rest of the world. A very enjoyable and entertaining journey. Each rider has a tale to tell, and the driver has many. Interviews with the mother of suicide bomber, to people who just want to get from point a to point b, and don't care about the political issues.I came away from this film feeling that "everybody is wrong, and nobody is right" about the Middle East. A 5 star film.

tonebone Caution: Spoilers within.A while back, MTV used to air a wonderful show in which a taxicab was fitted with a camera and mic, and the audience got to see all sorts of wonderful personalities as they would ride the cab and converse with the driver and give us all sorts of funny and weird "confessionals".Hany Abu-Asad seems to have taken this idea one step further in "Ford Transit", by using taxicab confessionals as a way to showcase the views and opinions of a large number of Palestinians, as well as depicting the their hectic way of life as they try to cross from checkpoint to checkpoint using a Ford Transit taxicab.We get to see everyone in the taxi, and i mean everyone!! Prominent Palestinian political figures like Hanan Ashrawi and Azmi Bishara; older women; fat men; lawyers; waiters; younger kids. All of them sitting in the back of a taxicab telling us what he/she thinks of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the peace process, Bush, the Israelis, checkpoints, and so on....Reigning as the supreme confessional, however, is the dialogue with Rajai, the young photogenic driver of the taxicab, as we watch him hustle his way through checkpoints, drive his cab over dirt roads to avoid surprise searches, and serve as a reality-check to the lofty, idealistic words sometimes expounded by his passengers. Rajai symbolizes the everyday hustle that young Palestinians have to become to survive in Palestine.What I liked most about this movie, however, was that the director Hany Abu-Asad himself, in interviewing the passengers in the taxicab, was always willing to play the role of the devil's advocate: trying to pose questions from the Israeli point of view and challenging the Palestinian occupants to see things not only from their side, but also from the other side.... ..this is movie's ultimate triumph, in my opinion! Not only does it serve to show us a vibrant and sometimes exasperating slice of Palestinian life, but it also questions the Palestinian/Arab viewer to think deeply about issues like the effect of suicide bombings, and whether they serve any meaningful purpose.Everyone should go see this movie. Well done.