- Content: “Powerful, Riveting and Heartbreaking”
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What You Need To Know:
I WAS A STRANGER is a powerful, riveting, heartbreaking movie with strong moral, pro-family content and some positive Christian content. As the five stories unfold, the movie builds to a powerful, emotional finish. However, I WAS A STRANGER is marred by brief foul language, sudden violence, positive references to Islam, and a politically correct slant on several issues. So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution.
Content:
Light mixed worldview, where Christian and Muslim characters during the Syrian Civil War in 2015 suffer loss, has a politically correct view of handling refugee crises and immigration, with a quick politically correct swipe at President Donald Trump, including his views on immigration, with some strong moral/pro-family elements of loyalty and courage, families fight to stay together, parents protect their children at all costs, people risk their lives for people they’ve never even met, a female doctor saves the lives of an enemy rebel even when a government soldier pressures her to let them die, but the movie’s religious content is mixed with Christian and false Islamic elements such as a Christian human trafficker and his young son silently pray together while making the Sign of the Cross, the female doctor’s parents have a crucifix on the wall of their house and a coast guard captain says, “Thank God,” but a Muslim woman leads an Arabic prayer with her children saying, “Allah is the greatest”, and a public Muslim prayer, “Allah is the greatest,” is heard in a street scene, though people on a floundering motorboat plead with God to help and save them, plus the Christian smuggler and his son dream of living in America and some antisemitic and Anti-Christian content where a Syrian government soldier makes an antisemitic comment against Zionists, his fellow soldier mentions “cutting the head off the Zionist snake,” and a Christian father is more interested in making money than treating other people well, though a female doctor with Christian parents and a Greek Coast Guard Coast captain who says, “Thank God” at one point seem to be the most admirable characters (she’s also a good mother, and he’s also a good father);
Three “s” obscenities, one strong profanity using the word, “Christ,” plus the “n” word is used once when a man tells a black man that he called him racial epithet (earlier, the movie had translated the man’s dialogue as “The black man”);
Strong and light intense violence includes people are bloodied and injured from bomb strikes and shrapnel, a boy and other people are executed off-screen (their line of bodies are shown from a distance afterwards), bombs drop and people are seen being pulled out of wreckage covered in blood, and multiple people are shot, but only one is shown;
A man and woman are seen in bed together, but nothing is implied;
Upper male nudity, plus underwear is mentioned once;
No alcohol use;
Several characters smoke cigarettes throughout the movie, but no illicit drug content; and,
Smugglers deceive refugees, government officials are oppressive, betrayal, and man and his elderly father are estranged.
More Detail:
The movie opens in 2023 in Chicago. The camera swoops past the Chicago Trump Tower (a pointed barb at the President and his immigration policies?) to a hospital to focus on a doctor there named Amira, a Syrian refugee.
Amira walks to a nearby computer while she hears another doctor and a nurse discuss a perplexing case about a young patient in distress. She sits down, and the movie cuts to eight years earlier in Aleppo, Syria, where Amira is treating a man wounded during some fighting in the Civil War. Amira is well-known and well-liked in her local area. The government seeks to dispel rebels in the area, and Amira works double time at the hospital to help the influx of patients. She is a good woman who tends to both soldiers and rebels.
Things change, however, when Amira stands to to a military officer and refuses to stop treating an injured rebel. Later, while visiting her Christian parents’ house to celebrate her birthday, a bomb suddenly explodes. Amira and her daughter are the only ones who survive. Amira realizes she and her daughter must escape Syria if they want to stay alive.
This dire circumstance bleeds into the next story, titled “The Soldier,” about a young Syrian trooper, Mustafa, who’s helping round up the rebels. However, Mustafa begins to have a change of heart when he witnesses a mass execution of some civilians, including a young boy. In a strange sequence of events, Mustafa’s life collides with Amira’s, and he must decide which side to choose.
One month later, the move’s third section of the movie, “The Smuggler,” follows a hard-nosed, practical African Christian, Marwan, in Turkey with a business sneaking refugees into Greece. Marwan and his young son dream of going to America one day, but things get tense when his Egyptian smuggling partner suddenly rebels against him.
The fourth story is about a man in Turkey who decides to sneak his Muslim family across the sea to Greece. His story intersects with the smuggler, Marwan, and the movie shows the journey and sacrifice the father makes to get his family to Greece.
The fifth and last story, labeled “The Captain,” is about a Greek Coast Guard captain, Stavros, who picks up Syrian refugees arriving on boats from Turkey. He’s rescued thousands of refugees and seen the sorrow and pain from all of them.
On a routine patrol one stormy evening, his boat runs into Marwan’s refugee boat. Some refugees have fallen overboard, and he must risk his own life to make sure they all get safely on board.
All five stories in I WAS A STRANGER intersect beautifully in fascinating ways. Viewers may not see it at first, but the lives stories slowly weave themselves together. The movie is gripping and filmed in a way that grabs and holds the viewer’s attention. Viewers get a real glimpse of the journey that Syrian refugees from the civil ear took in 2015 to reach Greece. The movie reveals the struggles and risks that are made just so people in Syria can escape the war persecution in their country.
I WAS A STRANGER is filmed in different languages, including Arabic, Greek and English. So, there are English subtitles throughout. However, they do little to detract from the movie. The visuals are brilliantly filmed and do a great job telling the story apart from the dialogue. A person could shut off the subtitles and still understand what’s happening.
Best of all, though, is how the movie builds the plot details to create suspense, excitement and emotion as the five stories come together and draw to a powerful close. The result is a heartbreaking ending showing the great loss that refugees can often undergo. The story falters, however, in a melodramatic line of dialogue in the fifth story when the coast guard captain is talking to some friends about his job trying to rescue refugees riding in floundering boats along the Mediterranean Sea. The movie gets back on track during the movie’s climax when the captain’s ship comes across the lifeboat carrying Amira, her daughter, Mustafa, and the Muslim family. A final scene at the end returns to 2023 and provides a unique twist to the stories.
I WAS A STRANGER has some strong moral, pro-family content. It also has some Christian content. For example, Amira’s parents have a crucifix on their wall. Also, the coast guard captain says, “Thank God” at one point. Finally, the African smuggler and his son say a silent prayer while they make the Sign of the Cross.
Sadly, this positive content is marred by some pro-Muslim content in I WAS A STRANGER. For example, the poet’s wife says an Arabic prayer with her children that repeats the phrase, “Allah is the greatest.” Secondly, in one scene after the story’s resolution, the movie returns briefly to Syria and includes a lengthy audio soundtrack of the Muslim morning call to prayer. The phrase “Allah is the greatest” is heard one more time here. There’s no reason to include this piece of soundtrack in the movie. The final scene almost makes up for this problem. In addition, many of the people; in the lifeboat cry out to God for help and mercy, but the boat is filled with both Christians and Muslims. The movie’s politically correct attitude also is annoying.
I WAS A STRANGER also has brief strong foul language. Also, some people are shot, but he movie usually cuts away from the shooting, except in one case. Also, a Syrian intelligence office shoots his gun into a car trunk where two women are hiding, but the shots don’t hit the women. The scene with the sudden explosion during the birthday party is very scary.
So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution.
