Il mercante di pietre

This one lost me early on at the airport. The editing misplaced the sequence. The security forces had the drop on the bad guys when all of a sudden these two not only get their guns out but manage to shoot several good guys. Impossible to believe. Then again a shoddy sequence (does this group of hapless film makers not expect their audiences to notice what's on the screen?) The last bad guy is shot through the head. A bit of blood is seen on the shoulder of Lydia, that is until the next scene when she sports blood all over her head and blouse. Where'd it come from? Duh! I left the room as the director tried to make me think Lydia would give the stone merchant the time of day. Maybe opposites attract, but I couldn't buy into that idea in this movie.

A total waste of time unless a film student needs watch one about how not to do it.

If this film had been made by a fundamentalist Christian group lead by the crackpot Koran burning Florida Pastor, I would have believed it. Except for the well known actors, the whole film seemed like one of those church funded efforts usually made with 'C' list players.

Let me list some of the flaws:

The color was awful ranging from almost normal to a washed out blue/green tint to almost no color at all.

Havey Keitel was miscast, and rather than a wealthy cosmopolitan gem dealer able to attract a beautiful young woman, he looked like a seedy old panhandler of the kind you cross the street to avoid. The bedroom scenes were just nauseating.

Did anyone ever shave? Some might find a few days beard growth attractive, I just find it scruffy.

The dubbing was poor. Jordi Molla went from a soft European accent to a sharp American accent in mid sentence several times.

The plot was ridiculous. Not only for the desk pounding propaganda, but the little things, such as why did F. Murry Abraham's character need to be on the ferry to activate the cell phone. He could have done it from the shore in Dover. In an early scene, two terrorists leave their bags under seats in the airport before the shootout with security. What happened to the bags. Were they disarmed before blowing up. Even a five year old could blow holes in this plot.

The lack of subtitles or captions made the dialogue hard to follow for the hearing impaired such as myself. Likewise, the lack of a 'making of' featurette.

Not really a flaw, as you can switch off at the end, but the very lengthy credits which mentioned everyone who had supplied anything and everything for the film in the way of props: e.g. coffee maker, dispenser, hotel furniture, curtains, table ware, and on and on. I am used to hairdressers, make up artists and musicians being credited, and also locations, but this list was ludicrous.

When the best thing you can say about a film is that the singer heard in the opening scene was good, and the scenes of Cappadocia were beautiful, it does not say much for the film overall.

This movie is obviously fiction. Unfortunately the background is not. A war has been waged against the west for nearly 1500 years and in this time 50% of the worlds Christians have been forcibly converted to Islam: the religion of "peace" which kills apostates, kills anyone who tells the truth about Islam and is the most violent, ideology of deceit, lust and greed eclipsing even Communism and National Socialism in its body count.

The comments made here by the leftists with their agenda, the ignorant and the simply biased are an index of the truth in the background of this movie as their writers can be likened to "flat earthers" who deny the blatant truth.

Islam has only been in decline since 1830 in reality when the Barbary Pirates were crushed and all of the Barbary states who like all Islamic states without oil, lived as parasites on the west, collapsed within 50 years with no more loot and slaves. The battle for Vienna marked the high tide mark for Islam. 1830 was its coup de grace.

Now with Saudi oil money and gutless western politicians it is back upon its aggressive march. This is the truth although the flat earthers will deny it. If you understand this, the movie is an above average thriller although the plot really is secondary to the background as the movie really is about the truth with regards to Islam and an attempt to wake up the morons of this world, who being flat Earthers will give it 1/10 as they dislike the truth. Anyone with the slightest knowledge of the truth will mark it 5-7. Keitel is uncomfortable with his role but is a consummate professional and is backed well by the rest of the cast.

I have never rated a movie before on a site like this, but was moved to do so because the film is so bad. You will see from the comments on here that some people rate this film highly (which is a surprise to me) while others rate it very low. In other words it is polarising. This is because of its political content about terrorism committed by Islamic fundamentalists. I am not someone who would minimise the threat posed by Islamic fundamentalists and a good film on the subject can be made. But this is not it. The dialogue is wooden and obvious. The acting from most actors, particularly the lead male is full of false-pathos and some of the scenes are at turn painfully obvious or laughably implausible - the worst by far is the scene with the maimed 'hero' trying to evade his hit-man killers with a rescue scene where he is saved approximately 2 minutes after making a call to his rescuer (was he waiting outside in the car?). However the two worst things about the film are the cinematography (the ferry scene is reminiscent of 'Thunderbirds') and inaccurate stereotypes about Islam. This is a scaremongering film of the worst ilk and worse still misunderstands its main subject matter. Best to avoid.

For the reviewer here who wrote "the wars between Muslims and Christians started with the crusades " please get some basic knowledge in history before spouting such nonsense. The vast majorities of North Africa, Spain, the near East to include all areas of the Byzantine Empire, to include Anatolia, Palestine, Judea, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq were large majority Christian until wars by Islam forcibly converted or killed the Christians in those places. In fact the Crusades were set off by tenth and eleventh century Califs destroying churches by the hundreds

A handful of people seem upset that the complex issue of Islamic terrorism (by far the largest source of terrorism today) is laid where it is to blame, within the Islamacist movement. Sorry but this is a fact.