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Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World
EMAILPRINTWarner Independent Pictures
Mixed or average reviews
Based on 35 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 7 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy
Written by: Albert Brooks
Directed by: Albert Brooks
Release Date:
Theatrical: January 20, 2006
DVD: August 29, 2006
Running Time: 98 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for drug content and brief strong language
Starring Albert Brooks, Jon Tenney, John Carroll Lynch, Sheetal Sheth, Amy Ryan, and Fred Dalton Thompson
Albert Brooks provides an inspired and comedic view of America's approach to other cultures. (Warner Independent Pictures)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: The Muse
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin
Like "The Aristocrats," Looking succeeds smashingly both as a comedy and as a savvy deconstruction of comedy.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
I liked the movie. I smiled a lot. It maintained its tone in the face of bountiful temptations to get easy laughs.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
It would have better if Brooks had invested more time trying to discover what makes AMERICANS laugh.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Fans of Brooks and his wry, dry neuroticism will not be disappointed as he whines and whimpers around New Delhi.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
Albert Brooks may have come up with the funniest movie premise of the year in Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
It's a sly, low-key comedy in which he casts himself as a neurotic, self-absorbed curmudgeon.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
Brooks' film is especially welcome now because it frankly admits that most Americans are ignorant about Muslims and have a lot to learn, in contrast with the few other Hollywood movies dealing with Muslims -- "Syriana," "Munich" -- which seem to suggest that non-Muslim viewers can emerge knowing the score.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
The movie doesn't so much end as reach a stopping point and limp hurriedly off-screen, like a bad stand-up chased out by boo birds. But God, is it funny.
Read Full Review >Variety Deborah Young
Though it risks political incorrectness every step of the way, film is more a pleasant laugher than a sharp-edged satire.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
It's only half of a good comedy. After a delicious opening and setup, the movie really doesn't go anywhere very interesting, and doesn't come close to any epiphanies about the subject at hand, even in subtext.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
Brooks is always a dry vintage, so the lack of outright laughs is to be expected. But Looking for Comedy is more depressing than funny.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
This Brooks is a comedian who forgets the golden rule of "know your audience." He thinks he'll get his laughs if he keeps doing the same act with better lighting.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kevin Crust
Not Brooks' funniest film, but it possesses his trademark wry humor and is slyly observant.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Dana Stevens
Front-loaded with inspired gags, and the first half-hour is both sneakily and explosively funny, raising expectations that are never quite met.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck
A reasonably amusing effort that manages to poke fun at Brooks' neuroses and governmental blundering with equal skill.
Read Full Review >Slate Stephen Metcalf
For the first half of Looking for Comedy, Brooks' hangdog demeanor performs reliably, and there are plenty of solid laughs.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Strange that a movie about comedy is so lacking in this quality.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Doesn't conclude so much as just stop, because Brooks, having come up with a great hook for a movie, didn't bother to come up with a satisfying story to go along with it.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
The movie has a perversely unifying effect: Muslims, Christians and Jews may not be able to agree on exactly who the heck Jesus is, but they're fully capable of bonding in boredom.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
The results are distressingly flat, frequently patronizing and, for a topical comedy, strangely out of it.
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
Almost despite itself, this is a deeply pessimistic movie.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine DavidEdelstein
Brooks is looking for comedy in all the wrong places. He's no longer his own White Whale. He's something slower, in a shell--his own turtle.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
You don't have to be a Muslim, or a humorless person of any persuasion, to find Brooks' performance excruciating.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
The movie isn't racist; it's just lame. If Brooks truly cared about Muslims or how their funny bones worked, Looking for Comedy might have had some zing, but all his character is interested in is the 500-page report he has to deliver - a homework assignment from hell.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
Looking for comedy in Albert Brooks' Looking for Comedy In the Muslim World is a fool's errand. There's hardly any there.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
The question for skittish distributors is not whether Looking for Comedy will play in Peshawar, but how long the movie will take to put Peoria to sleep.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky
A particularly painful event for those of us weaned on Brooks' earliest films, Saturday Night Live shorts and vintage clips of his deadpan standup appearances. It contains precisely two funny moments.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Phil Hall
Unfortunately, Brooks errs badly by having his film centered in India. Yes, India - which, as most people know, is not a predominantly Muslim country. Rather than look for comedy in the Muslim world, Brooks uses this film to make fun of contemporary Indian society.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
An essentially toothless affair, poking fun at American imperialism and its attendant cluelessness while never illuminating much beyond the obvious.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
There's nothing more painful than watching comics tank, and Looking for Comedy in a Muslim World is a 95-minute wince.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
However deep the divide currently separating the Middle East from the West appears to be, there's at least one thing we can all agree on: Albert Brooks isn't all that funny anymore.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
This is by far the most embarrassing of his seven movies.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.5 (out of 10) based on 7 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
David H. gave it an8:
I think these critics don't get it. This is not a documentary. That's not his real wife and kid. This is not Albert Brooks, it's "Albert Brooks" in the same way that Woody Allen's character in his movies is not Woody Allen. Brooks spends the film mocking his own self-absoprtion and his question doesn't seem to be so much what makes these people laugh as do I make these people laugh. He has many opportunities to discover the truth but he continues, to great comic effect, to simply try to gratify his own wilted ego. Seen from this angle, the movie had me in tears. While this is not prime Albert Brooks, it was better than The Muse and it will do until the next one comes along.
J. B. gave it a1:
Painful pacing and bad stand up made this unbearable to watch. The wife, child, assistant, and the two state dept employees are all over-simplified one dimensional characters. Brooks' clumsy attempts at 'research' are frustratingly inept, which made me mad for such a good premise to be wasted.
Paul C. gave it a0:
As one of the industry reviews above clearly states..India isn't a Muslim country It's a secular state, though predominantly Hindu and Sikh Despite the secular nature, there's one religion that definately DOES NOT describe India - and that's Muslim ! Partition was a painful and deadly process process - one that this "comedian" seems blisfully unaware of. Are American's that un-worldly as to just put all other religions in the "other" pile ? As for this (lets face it MASSIVE) error the film itself : Well it's just not funny, I watched it for the first time not realising that it was supposed to be (having never heard of Mr Brookes before) As a review said 2 funny bits (just about funny enough to curl your mouth at the edges) I re-watched the film (on FF) and can agree ..it's 2 and only 2 very mildly funny bits in the whole fiasco of what boils down to one mans ego boost at the expense of everything else. This isn't satire - it's self indulgence on a grand and entirely unfoundable scale. If I could give this film a minus score I would.
Tom M. gave it a9:
Brooks in vintage form pokes fun at himself and America's ignorance of foreign cultures.
Bruce C. gave it a9:
"Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World" is Albert Brooks as we haven't seen him since 1985's "Lost in America." This satire, in which Albert Brooks accepts a governmental commission to write a 500-page report on what tickles the Muslim funny bone, misses no opportunity to poke fun at America's cluelessness about other cultures. Like "Lost in America" and "Real Life," its humor comes from Brooks's characters' desperate attempts to salvage some dignity in the face of a grand idea gone terribly wrong. This time his satirical targets include the ironies of his own career: the burden of being better known for voicing a fish in a cgi cartoon than for all of his other work combined. It's a welcome return to form for one of our bravest satirists.
