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Walk On Water
Samuel Goldwyn Films


8.9

based on 28 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 25 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

MPAA RATING: Not Rated

Starring Lior Ashkenazi, Knut Berger, Caroline Peters, Gideon Shemer, Hanns Zischler, and Carola Regnier

A colorful and very contemporary road movie that takes its characters around Israel and later to Berlin. This unique movie, is a non traditional attempt to understand the role that is still played by the past in the lives of Israeli and German young people. (IDP Films)

GENRE(S):	Drama \| Foreign \| Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	Gal Uchovsky
DIRECTED BY:	Eytan Fox
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: August 30, 2005 Theatrical: March 4, 2005
RUNNING TIME:	104 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	Israel
LANGUAGE(S):	English / German / Hebrew (with English subtitles)

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...

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

At times too movieish, yet Ashkenazi creates a memorable figure: a spy who operates - admirably - out of the most unyielding nationalist conviction, only to learn that he needs to let some of that conviction go.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Fox keeps the suspense story at a low boil throughout, allowing the politics to emerge as the characters deepen.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Its suggestion that Israel, of all nations, should know better than to persecute minorities within and across its borders, give the film a thrilling universal appeal.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

It denotes a minor movie miracle: how with intelligence, imagination and craft a small film can work in really large ways.

Empire Sam Toy

The uniformly excellent performances feel real and familiar.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

There’s something happening here and it isn’t exactly clear. What is clear is that Eytan Fox may yet make a great film for the 21st century.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Remains gripping until the final 15 minutes, when a series of sudden, unjustified plot twists leave us shaking our heads.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Compassionate and marvelously acted, although a subplot about the gay grandson slows the story down for a while.

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

Hits a bulls-eye.

The New York Times Lawrence Van Gelder

Though it is marred by an implausible climax and a cloying conclusion, this movie's quiet intelligence sneaks up on you, marking the director as a talent to watch.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

The new Israeli film Walk on Water is complex and paradoxical, at times frustrating but always involving. Something like the country that produced it.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

All political thrillers, good or less good, have moral implications...Walk on Water, one of the better ones, has grave moral implications and does not ignore them or merely utilize them.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

Fox's film seems to say that the kind of saintly purity that would enable one to walk on water -- or to kill with impunity and without repercussions -- doesn't exist.

Dallas Observer Jean Oppenheimer

Explores a wealth of issues and conflicting ideologies.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

Though its characters aren't terribly complex, and its plot holds few surprises, the screenplay (in English, German, and Hebrew) amounts to a worthy treatise on the need to forgo revenge.

Miami Herald Marta Barber

An unexpected ode to peace.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Unfortunately for Fox, the softer his movie gets, the more Ashkenazi and Berger grow to resemble Ben Stiller and Ashton Kutcher in some unreleased, homo-erotic comic romance.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Stephen Cole

The Israeli film works best in isolated spots early on as a series of intriguing character studies. Upon reaching to become a lesson to the world, however, Walk on Water goes off the deep end.

Chicago Tribune Ellen Fox

Despite the film's pat plot turns and instructional tone, there are moments of charm, thanks to the fetching, committed cast.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

The film nearly drowns in earnest morality.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Fox falters a bit with the narrative, but offers a fascinating treatment of the issues facing the descendents of Jewish victims and their German persecutors, as well as one of the most chilling birthday parties ever filmed.

The Hollywood Reporter Sheri Linden

Well-meaning but implausible story.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

When it unexpectedly shifts back into its initial thriller mode, Walk On Water loses in human drama what it gains in tidiness, revealing itself as a film that carries more weight in its light scenes than its heavy moments can sustain.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Bill White

Despite its flaws, Walk on Water is a sometimes engaging story of emotional opposites who become mystifyingly attracted to each other.

Variety Leslie Felperin

Attempts the miraculous but achieves the adequate.

New York Post V.A. Musetto

Fox can't decide if Walk on Water is a terrorist thriller or a gay buddy story, and neither can the viewer.

Village Voice Leslie Camhi

The complex questions Walk on Water raises receive only confused answers.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Walk on Water makes you wonder what the Mossad is teaching its field agents these days.

The average user rating for this movie is 8.9 (out of 10) based on 25 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Jaideep P. gave it a10:
Excellent movie, really well done. Tackles an interesting issue from multiple angles. The relevance of the Nazi era to modern Israelis, nationalism, fear of the enemy, German self-image regarding WW II...Balanced, realistic.

pat b. gave it a9:
This movie wasn't supposed to answer questions--it was supposed to raise them. It had a wide scope, difficult to address, perhaps, in one film, but it certainly should make people think and feel, the result of any good film.

Maite A. gave it a9:
Clever, entertaining, moving and funny film with a very human message. Great from the beggining and getting even better as the story goes on.

Jeff L gave it a9:
Always entertaining. Very moving. A great story with a great message.

Chad S. gave it an8:
"In the Cut" was a suspense/thriller subverted by the chick flick. Like the underappreciated Jane Campion-directed film from 2003, Etyan Fox's "Walk on Water" makes digressions, in this case, into the gay subculture, that seem to exist outside the genre requirement of the thriller that the story be plot-oriented. To me, "Walk on Water" most resembles the form of "In the Cut" when the Jewish assasin and the gay German hang out by the sea. It's like somebody switched reels. Because "Walk on Water" is playing in art theaters, there won't be the befuddlement of cineplex patrons who kept waiting for the two chicks (Meg Ryan and Jennifer Jason-Leigh) to shut-the-hell-up, and live up to the billing of "thriller". "Walk on Water" shows you things you don't normally see; most notably, Jews recast as the bad guys, and a "queer" killer whose violent act isn't intended to incite a straight audience to villify them. The film's climax is like a Paragraph 175 revenge fantasy.

Hels W. gave it a7:
The film compared the experiences of Germans in Israel and Israelis in Germany: both settings required explanations and soul searching. While they were filming, there were 3 massacres of Jewish school children by terrorists. I am glad they showed the news footage only on tv in the background; otherwise the film may have become an intense tragedy rather than a drama.

ed s. gave it a10:
One of the very best films of 2005: ambitious, captivating, satisfying, superior craftsmanship. a great film sharply focused on current hot button social, personal and political issues.

Walk On Water Samuel Goldwyn Films

Walk On Water
Samuel Goldwyn Films