Mando

A seriously annoying piece of work, Mando follows several Middle Eastern family members as they attempt to transport their dying patriarch to Iran – where he has expressed a desire to spend his final days. Filmmaker Ebrahim Saeedi’s decision to shoot the entirety of Mando from the aforementioned patriarch’s point of view proves utterly disastrous, as the movie subsequently suffers from a pervasively inauthentic atmosphere that’s reflected in its various attributes – with the uniformly amateurish performances certainly ranking high on the film’s list of underwhelming elements (and it certainly doesn’t help that, by necessity of the POV structure, the actors are forced to perform/overact directly into the camera). It’s also worth noting that the first-person perspective diminishes the impact of the group’s more overtly dangerous encounters (ie they drive through the aftermath of a terrorist attack), with such moments essentially turned into the cinematic equivalent of an amusement park ride. The movie is just as ineffective in its quieter, character-based interludes, as Saeedi has infused such moments with a hopelessly melodramatic sensibility that’s nothing short of laughable. Making matters worse (and the final straw, really) is the fact that most scenes are accompanied by the central character’s heavy breathing, which inevitably goes from annoying to downright infuriating and certainly cements Mando‘s place as an aggressively ill-advised endeavor.

no stars out of ****