Fire Birds

The moment the movie starts, with a big-band arrangement (by Adi Cohen) of the Yiddish classic "Oyf'n Pripetshik," it seems we're in good hands. Two plot threads develop. One of them is a familiar meme, the cop who has been disgraced but who has a chance to redeem himself by solving a mystery. To add to the familiarity, he's also been thrown out by his wife and would like to return to her and to his daughter. But the mystery is an interesting one. The other plot thread is less conventional and is designed to give screen time to some of Israel's finest actors of the veteran generation, who all make good use of it and are beautifully photographed. There are some good original lines and some good little surprises. Neither plot thread winds up resolving itself in the expected way, but it's hard to pin down where certain ultimately unresolved and undeveloped plot points simply reflect the modern tolerance for uncertainty in narratives and where the script may have been unsatisfactorily developed or edited.