McCarthy unquestionably means well, but he’s made one of those incredibly naive movies (like last fall''s Rendition) that give liberals — Hollywood liberals especially — a bad name, and which do more to regress the sociopolitical discourse than advance it. “I was struck by how little I knew about the region,” McCarthy says in the movie’s press notes, remarking on his trip to the Middle East for a U.S. cultural-outreach program. “With all the news and the headlines and the drama, we can forget that there are human beings on both sides of this. How can I eliminate that a little bit? That always is my call to arms.” A curious last choice of words there, to be sure. As for the rest, is McCarthy really this dense, or does he think he’s the enlightened one here and we are in need of his counsel? I hope it’s the former, but on the basis of The Visitor, I fear it’s the latter.
THE VISITOR | Written and directed by TOM McCARTHY | Produced by MARY JANE SKALSKI and MICHAEL LONDON | Released by Overture Films | ArcLight Hollywood, The Landmark
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