Sep 28, 2004 12:00 a.m. - Yahoo! News - Entertainment - Movies
Variety - This is also one of the first films to show American tanks rumbling through the streets and the effect of U.S. occupation on the populace during Afghan reconstruction. It might seem logical, then, that Meshkini's aesthetic reference point is Italian post-war neorealism; one scene openly quotes Vittorio De Sica's classic "The Bicycle Thief." But good intentions aside, De Sica in his prime is a difficult act to follow and the sentimentality that he handled so masterfully in 1948 looks forced and old-fashioned here.
