2189. Atomic Falafel (2015)

Starring: Michelle Treves, Shai Avivi, Mali Levi

Director: Dror Shaul

Running Time: 100 mins

Atomic Falafel is an Israeli film about a period of high nuclear tension as two young girls end up spilling secrets from Israel and Iran on the internet.

I hated this film. Frustratingly, I was enticed by the only good bit of writing in the whole movie – the title – expecting a fantastically silly parody full of idiocy and laughs. In truth, there’s absolutely nothing to Atomic Falafel, a film totally lacking in humour and featuring absolutely nothing beyond idiotic slapstick, not to mention the total lack of an engaging story or any decent performances.

The title is undoubtedly the funniest part of the film, promising Naked Gun-style antics, but don’t be fooled, because there’s absolutely nothing to the rest of this movie beyond that good bit of title writing.

With production qualities that barely rival the likes of Sharknado, the moment that this film starts is a major disappointment, further pushed into the abyss by a total lack of decent dialogue, over the top and annoying performances, and a first act that’s filled of desperately awful comedy that sets the scene for an hour and a half more of tedium and frustration.

You could say that this film is so stupid and braindead that there’s little to be offended or genuinely irritated by, but that fact in itself is so frustrating to note, as you’re forced to sit through one hundred minutes of totally pointless idiocy with absolutely no direction at any point, jumping randomly between totally unconnected characters who are all thrown into a wide range of stupid, unconvincing and completely unfunny situations.

From the beginning, it’s clear that this film has been thrown together on the whim of a fun title and a couple of potentially funny scenes, and somehow strung together to make a feature length movie. With no screenwriting talent, absolutely no good performances, and directing that fails to even make different scenes feel like they’re connected in the slightest bit, there’s little more to say about how poor Atomic Falafel is, leaving me only to stress you to avoid wasting your time with it, and that’s why I’m giving it a 3.0 overall.