Since I know the area and some of the stories from Israel's independence war, it was interesting to see our history come to life. The storyline is good and so are the actors but some of the scenes, specifically some of the battle scenes, seem amateurish, but maybe it's because that's how untrained soldiers and new immigrants fought at the time. Trying to bring the story from both sides of the conflict is interesting, humanizing the other side. Worth watching!

I almost never watch foreign language films but was enticed by the appeal to actual events, and I actually enjoyed those aspects of the film. The acting was fairly good and the humorous parts were plausible. What I disliked was the portrayal of the Egyptian film Director. It's hard for me to digest a dyed-in-the-wool antagonist being 'haunted' by the woman's smile. The film reminded me of the pro-war films during the post-WW2 and Vietnam eras: "We" are good and 'the Other' is evil/incompetent'.

This film happened to be well done, with some human interest threads.