The Arab world. a portrait created using cliches and mixed stories and confrontations scenes. and personal stories. the result is far to be remarkable. but decent. and interesting. and that fact is the basic motif for see it. sure, for a part of cast, for landscapes and for fragments of plot. but important is the detail than it is better than more of its public expectations. and this represents a good point.

Why? hard to explain... not really! Without trying to get your sympathy for my reviews, I will share something not so private: my dad before teaching me how to ride a bicycle or to properly talk, he took me to movies, talked about every actor and director, therefore I love movies, he died 41 years ago, when I was eight years old, and while watching, "Day of the Falcon" I wished he had been sitting next to me, like he did on "Laurence of Arabia".On this times of so much abuse for Especial Effects and CG, a story like "Day of the Falcon" is so well crafted that easily translate to the movie screen, is so refreshing, so "cool" as we say these days, that after the ending I could still feel the magic of my long gone childhood after the matinées with warriors, pirates, horses and men in turbans or hats, dinosaurs and else, and because of that feeling, and magic, I recommend this almost unknown and pretty much, ignored movie.Every actor from the most famous or not, delivers, the photography, the sceneries, everything! Creates the ambiance that every movie should have for us in order to keep on loving films!

Jean-Jacques Annuad's wannabe epic The Day of the Falcon (also known as Black Gold) feature's some of the most bizarre and downright idiotic casting choices ever committed to celluloid and due to this ruins any chance the movie had at being a sweeping tale of love, family and war in the barren lands of early nineteenth century Arabia.The Day of the Falcon is a suitably large scale looking film with a huge budget handed to it by its Saudi Arabian backers but money must have been thrown in the majority at its world spanning cast who look like lost souls in a movie that would've been much more suited casting locals as to not distract from what is essentially a ripe storyline. A Prophet breakout star Tahar Rahim fairs best in the cast but from him it's all horribly downhill. We have a Spaniard (Banderas), a cockney Englishman (Strong) and a clearly Indian (Pinto) filling out the cast of natives. No amount of makeup or costume design can hide the fact that these people are in no way shape or form from this country which really is insulting to both the story and the audiences. These casting mistakes are made all the more hard to swallow when Annaud's film showcases select scenes that make one think they are watching a better movie.Annuad has shown promise behind the camera before with Enemy at the Gates one of the more enjoyable guilty pleasures of the last decade or so and here again proves to have a good eye for the large scale detail, but within the film those scenes are few and far between with a seemingly intense finale playing out far too quickly and characters never truly making a mark on the audience. The film certainly looks pretty in a sandy type of way and the period of history in which the film takes place makes it a more intriguing prospect than it deserves to be but that's in no way a selling point.Day of the Falcon was an almighty flop the world over and a film that has rightfully been passed over by many film lover. It's good to see up and coming actor Tahir Rahim take lead in a picture of this scale and he is a shining light in an otherwise pointless movie that proves to those in the business that casting name actors at the expense of believability is a big mistake.1 and a half miscast foreign actors out of 5 For more movie reviews and opinions check out - www.jordanandeddie.wordpress.com

The only complaint I have is that having some knowledge of Arab cultures, and also having children, and watching the Shrek movies, Antonio Banderas is not my idea of an Arab at all, least of all a sultan or emir. Throughout his scenes, well acted surely, I kept visualizing the cartoon cat character from said children's shows. I do not watch movies with him in it generally, so this was a minor distraction, often humorous, when it did not befit the movie itself.However the rest of the movie was wonderful. I am giving it a 9/10 stars, minus one for casting Banderas, who is far too apologetic to play a major Arab leader. I was disappointed highly with his performance, but everyone else was well cast and played. The one brother, Saleh, surprised the plot a little, and it was difficult to tell who was the Ibn Idris character and who was the brother Tariq. I spent most of the movie thinking Ibn Idris was the brother, so now I will need to review the earlier scenes specifically for those purposes.I appreciated the rich religious and cultural references and this would serve as a minor introduction to Arab culture, although I agree with another reviewer who cited it as fiction. Honor can always be enhanced thru fictional heroics. For example, the bedouin Bani Zamiri woman who he freed, he could easily have done a marriage with her, at any point. I really liked the emphasis this movie plays on religious conservatism, and how well it is paired with progressive thought. This breaks away from 'stereotyping' Arab actors, very well. They have representation of diverse Muslim-Arabs (I really enjoyed the inclusion of "African" and "Asian" actors), and it's overall a stunning, impressive story. I would gladly watch this if it went on longer. It is well worth watching if you have any interest in the topics of Islam, Arab culture, and perhaps even warfare. It's really not that bad when it comes to the fight scenes. I see much worse in Hollywood movies. It seemed a bit strange that the female lead was so beautiful compared to the other characters, and I found her to be a bit boring and cliché, poor acting that seemed out of character; ie. 'submissive' at wrong times to husband and then nonsubmissive to the father at all times. Some things that were not very clear included the costumes, such as why did he, in the end, (Emir Auda) wear his mother's tribal colors? Reviewing the beginning, it is nice to see how Prince Auda develops from a shy child to a wise leader, very much like the opening scene with his father, where his father is cautiously, carefully listening to Antonio Banderas' character. Speaking of which, it irks me how nearly everyone else is a 'proud' Arab character, but Banderas seems to skulk, and plays a bit of resentful sod, not an Arab. The rest of the actors are much better.