Review of The War Within (2005) by Chads. — 12 Apr 2007

In the Choudhury's home, Hassan(Ayad Akhtar) is beseiged by nightmares of his malevolent interrogation and subsequent thrashing in Paris, where he was a mere student(apparently apolitical) who would walk and make plans to see a movie on his cell-phone.

We already know this; it's how "The War Within begins(kidnapping, beatdown, first contact with a member of "the brotherhood"). What most of us want from this ever-timely film(as long as we're at war) are flashbacks that parcel out Hassad's transformation from a graduate student to a radical Islamic fundamentalist.

Hassan is obviously ill-suited to be a mercenary for Allah; his achilles heel, a heart, is right there on his sleeve with Duri's name on it. He is so in love with her(Nandana Sen). We need to see his teachers and hear their rhetoric, because Hassan's faith in God(a politicized, not the historical Allah) will turn out to be his worst enemy, and not western civilization("I pledge allegiance to the flag of.

..). His hate for America is so all-encompassing, he'd rather die than slow dance with his best friend's sister to Bread(oh, wait; that's me). Integrity can indeed be a flaw; conversely, Khalid(Charles Daniel Sandoval) sells out his religion for "bad girls".

His penis(or rather, his phallic epiphany) makes this compromised Islamic, a heretic(an anti-hero as opposed to hero because Khalid is just horny, not moral) who nevertheless, saves lives by happenstance.

"The War Within" is thought-provoking, especially when Hassan indoctrinates Sayeed's son into the world of Islam by coordinating his religious training. In your mind, you'll wage a war between the self-awareness of not being ethnocentric and political incorrectness.