Review of Timbuktu (2014) by Mike B — 28 May 2016

A murderer is apprehended almost immediately after his crime...in the middle of the pathless desert. The arrest is made by Jihadi motorcycle cops, meaning two Jihadis squeezed atop one motorcycle with automatic rifles slung over their shoulders. Just how they transport their prisoner happens off screen, but they must've managed it somehow, as he is delivered to the hands of expedient justice that very evening.

Timbuktu has been lauded for humanizing terrorists. This is certainly true, especially for anyone prone to conflating the term "humanizing" with "lampooning".

The flipside is that the film romanticizes its heroes in equal measure. We are to believe that the Bedouin family just wants to smile their perfect-toothed smiles around the family hearth while indulging in Kumbaya bullshit.

The entire thing is also interspersed by appearances of a recurring female character who openly flouts the Jihadis prescriptive laws without incurring their wrath. Inference suggests this figure may be intended as an indomitable, pan-African spirit of sorts, but each of her appearances is a grating distraction and almost universally nonsensical.

The film is pretty, though.