"The Algerian" is a little gem that explores the motivations of a terrorist named Ali and the unexpected consequences of his engagement with his target. Ben Youcef as the titular character is a revelation, an actor as smart as he is good-looking. (He also wrote the story on which director-writer-editor Giovanni Zelko based the screenplay.)
Ali, who attended American University in Cairo, speaks fluent English, but there are still cultural things that surprise him when he arrives in the United States on a student visa. He is a lone wolf early in the film as he takes a room that he eventually furnishes with a naked mattress and not much else. (At one point, we see what looks to be an empty bird cage; was there an attempt at keeping a pet that was edited out?)
Ali's isolation and loneliness are palpable, but gradually he meets people including a shopkeeper (Zuhair Haddad) who sells him a bicycle and makes him an Arab-style cup of coffee, and a woman he could have fallen in love with in a different life. (Candice Coke's performance as Ali's love interest, Lana, anchors the film in a secondary story arc that holds up a tragic mirror that Ali cannot ignore.) All the people he meets represent either his old world or this new one in unanticipated ways. Harry Lennix, as Sulyman, the imam of a local mosque, is possibly the best-known cast member in this ensemble (other than Seymour Cassel who has a small role as a professor of history who argues with Ali). Ali is comforted by Sulyman's pastoral counselling but instinctively knows that Sulyman is also an American, and he can't confess that he is in America to carry out a deadly mission. The mission is on behalf of a figure known as "Father" who fancies himself destined to become the Khalifa (Caliph) of the whole Muslim world through terrorist acts. All of these characters are limned effectively and efficiently despite their often brief appearances on screen.
Ali does not bargain for meeting two women who inspire love and an American man (Josh Pence) his own age who becomes a friend. His relationships tangle him in conflicting feelings of love and hate, tolerance and prejudice (both received and given). As his feelings about his comrades and his cause on one hand and his new friends and his host country on the other become increasingly complicated, Ali questions his commitments and ultimately makes a shocking decision.
A couple of segues from scene to scene seem a bit abrupt, but there are not too many of those. Also giving the impression that Zelko had to do some severe editing, there are some unanswered questions such what leads the FBI to arrest the shopkeeper who knows nothing about Ali's mission. An apparent act of random injustice seems to be there just to stoke Ali's animosity for the U. S., even though we already understand that he blames Americans for making him an orphan when he was a boy.
Slow at first, the film becomes more and more exciting and unpredictable. Zelko's direction is confidant and brings out fine performances from a cast of mostly little-known actors. Sara (Tara Holt) as Ali's second love interest does her best to be convincing, but this relationship pales beside Ali's stronger chemistry with Lana. (BTW is it an intended or unintended joke that "Lana's" nickname for Ali is "Superman"?) Father (Said Faraj) is surprisingly humanized despite his devotion to speechmaking even in conversations and his obvious manipulativeness and megalomania. It ultimately seems out of character for him to come to the U. S. to oversee his plans. Doing so makes him seem pennyante, a poor man's Usama bin Laden. Megalomaniacs are usually canny enough to stay out of harm's way.
