Anwar Hashimi and Shahrbanoo Sadat in 'No Good Men.' Courtesy of Berlinale Share on Facebook Share on X Google Preferred Share to Flipboard Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Send an Email Print the Article Post a Comment Afghan writer-director Shahrbanoo Sadat says that she made No Good Men as a reaction against the predominance of films about her country seen through the harsh lens of war. But calling it a "political rom-com" does a disservice to this engrossing though lumpy mix of workplace observation, anti-patriarchal social realism, spiraling alarm over the return of an oppressive regime and romantic melodrama rife with cliché and contrivance. Much of the comedy appears to have been lost along the wayside in a movie that's inarguably well-intentioned, even admirable, but struggles to pin down exactly what it wants to be beyond that. Related Stories Movies Why Are the Studios Ghosting Film Festivals? Movies Berlin Hidden Gem: A Palestinian Uber Driver and a Young Israeli Form a Bond in Assaf Machnes' Timely Drama 'Where To?' Perhaps a vestige of the humorous touch Sadat originally intended survives in the title and credit sequences. Up front, joyous party music plays over slow-motion shots of luscious succulents in bloom, opening to reveal more vulval imagery than a Georgia O'Keefe retrospective. The sentimental closing scene cuts abruptly to a cactus so phallic that only its green hue and armor of needles distinguish it from the hefty rubber vibrator brought back from America by glamorous ex-pat Anita (Torkan Omari) as a divorce gift for the protagonist. No Good Men The Bottom Line Absorbing but dramatically diffuse. Venue: Berlin Film Festival (Berlinale Specials - Opening Film)Cast: Shahrbanoo Sadat, Anwar Hashimi, Liam Hussaini, Yasin Negah, Masihullah Tajzai, Torkan Omari, Fatima Hassani, Ahmad AziziDirector-screenwriter: Shahrbanoo Sadat 1 hour, 43 minutes Those bookends might look more at home on a sex farce, which is not even close to what No Good Men is, despite its climax with a passionate kiss that's a slap in the face to restrictive Taliban morality dictates. The film is partly inspired by TOLO TV, Afghanistan's leading private news channel, where seven staffers were killed in 2016 from the blast of a Taliban suicide bomber. While most of its news reporters, producers and editors fled the country in 2021, within days of the fall of Kabul, TOLO continued broadcasting, albeit with a veto on any content deemed "contrary to Islam." Sadat stepped into the film's lead role three weeks before shooting when the actress chosen after a long and difficult casting process got cold feet. She plays Naru, a camera operator at Kabul News, who has moved back in with her parents while warily negotiating separation from her lazy, cheating husband Samir (Masihullah Tajzai). She fears that if she pushes too hard for divorce, Samir will take custody of their 3-year-old son Liam (Liam Hussaini). Frustrated by her duties shooting "women's programming" and tired of rolling her eyes at the retrograde gender roles being pushed - the heavy-handedness of a male guest's response to a traumatized female caller is cringe-inducing - Naru begs the news division chief (Yasin Negah) to put her on more hard-hitting content. He refuses, but when the station's star news reporter Qodrat (Anwar Hashimi) needs a cameraman at short notice to film a hard-to-get interview with a Taliban commander, Naru talks her way into the assignment. Qodrat seems as blatantly sexist as every other Afghan man at first, calling his boss to insist he needs a "proper cameraman" before reluctantly agreeing to use Naru. When her headscarf momentarily slips off, the interviewee uses that violation of Taliban law as an excuse to end the interview without answering a single question. Qodrat says nothing in the van afterwards, but when he drops Naru off with her equipment on a busy commercial street to shoot Valentine's Day vox pops, the "stay in your lane" implication is clear. However, Naru surprises her news colleagues by coming back with a wealth of good material in which women speak candidly about their husbands' tendency toward hostile, abusive or at best dismissive treatment of them. This preconditioned behavior, passed down from one generation of men to the next, is the movie's key underlying theme. Just in case that's not clear, Naru, Anita and prim colleague Layla (Fatima Hassani) have a frank conversation about Afghan men's shortcomings while giggling over the dildo gift, which is funny until it veers into the didactic. When Qodrat's regular cameraman is injured on assignment due to the poor-quality bullet-proof vests provided by the station, the reporter agrees to take Naru to cover a breaking news case about a group of men accused of gang rape. Her ability to get emotional testimony from the victims in silhouette interviews is key to the piece's success, something