"Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World."

I enjoyed this NPR interview with Albert Brooks about his new movie, in which a character, played by him and named Albert Brooks, is sent to India and Pakistan to try to learn what makes Muslims laugh and write a 500 page report about it, which, Fred Thompson tells him, would be doing his country a great service. Well, that's the concept. Yes, of course, it doesn't make any sense. He's just one comedian, and the Muslims in question are millions of people, many of whom don't speak English. I wouldn't even expect Albert Brooks to be able to figure out what Americans find funny. But none of that matters much, I assume. The question isn't what makes Muslims laugh, but whether Brooks can make us laugh with this material. That sounds like a rather difficult task.

How is he doing? Rotten Tomatoes is showing seriously mixed reviews. Here's J. Hoberman in the Village Voice:

[T]he movie is complicated by two paradoxes—one annoyingly obvious, the other fascinatingly implicit. The first is the use of India, which, although home to 150 million Muslims, has six times as many Hindus; the second is that Brooks's comic sensibility travels so badly. Woody Allen may bestride the world like a colossus, but—the brilliance of Real Life, Modern Romance, and Lost in America notwithstanding—not even the French have shown any interest in Albert Brooks. I'd hazard that this has something to do with the untranslatable subtlety of his one-liners (dependent as they are on situation and delivery) and the uningratiating nature of his persona (complete with refusal to acknowledge blatant neuroses).

"Not even the French have shown any interest in Albert Brooks" -- I love that.