User reviews

I caught this on Amazon Prime one day before its offering was to expire. While today Israel has a budding film industry with some top-notch offerings and concepts that the entire world licenses to remake, I was curious to see what the standards for its industry were back in the 1980s. If "Goodbye, New York" is any indication, it was shlock.

The story is idiotic; the acting is worse. At one point, I wondered whether a after-school special's dialogue from that time period would have been better (it may have been). Later, it occurred to me that the dialogue sounded as leaden and as robotic as say, an 80s porn film. And then, in the film - no joke! - one of the characters claimed to have been a porn actress from the States! Honest to God, the development of the characters, the acting, the storyline was about as developed as it would have been in any 80s-era erotic offering, which is to say, not much.

Some reviewers here criticize this movie as pro-Israeli propaganda. I disagree. Every character is reduced to a stereotype. While the two Arabs (store-owner, Beduoin) were one-note, so were the idiotic Israeli men. So was Julie Hagerty, the American. So was her husband. So were the people on the Kibbutz. So was the story. So was the Romanian character who was trying to "cheat" on a business transaction. So was the boyfriend of Julie Hagerty's girlfriend from the kibbutz. So was Albert, her quick-lived fall-in-love romantic affair. So was the adult-film actress in the bar. Every character in this film was one-tone, stupid, and uninteresting. The only redeemable character was the lead actor (also director and writer), Amos Kollek, who started off the movie, as a womanizer as well.

Terrible movie.

The one interesting aspect of the film was to observe how much Israel has modernized over the past 35 years. I visited in 2008, and by then, Israel was a country of modern highways, tech companies, and skyscrapers. In 1984, when this movie came out, Tel Aviv was Israel's most modern city and from the shots from this film, it looks 80s-worn and weathered . . . nothing like today. Most of the shots - including those in Jerusalem - look rustic and rural, which is how Israel was. This is before the mass-immigration from the former Soviet Union that caused great growing pains to this tiny country. This was also before the first and the second Intifadas (December 1987; October 2000). This was before the bus bombings and the suicide bombings in the streets and corridors of Main Street and the shopping malls. This is before the Peace Initiatives and before the Palestinian Authority. It was a different world back then. This movie's value lies in its time encapsulation, which occurred through no intention of its own. It's like seeing an old James Bond film from the 60s or 70s from Italy or Thailand or New Orleans and observing how those same areas have changed in the past forty or fifty years.

It's a time capsule of Israel from the 80s with the quality of an adult film from that same era. Other than the comparing and contrasting the modernization and development of Israel in the past 35 years, an adult film is probably more interesting.

Julie Hagerty stars as an insurance saleswoman who quits her job in order to taste life, winding up in Israel broke and homeless. Quickly discovering she'll have to get back to work, Hagerty (who knows her math!) learns the meaning of survival, finding friendships along the way. Minor excursion in the wake of "Private Benjamin" is pretty silly. Amos Kolleck wrote, directed and co-stars...and may have been in over his head. The picture isn't overly-ambitious (I didn't detect any hidden agendas), though it could have stood some extra input. Kolleck's writing is spirited in the same sense that most TV sitcoms are spirited, and Hagerty is never encouraged to give her sassy, flighty character any added dimension or emotional weight. *1/2 from ****

It is difficult to imagine anything similar to a sound reason why Julie Hagerty decided to be involved with this woefully underfunded and banal film. The talented Hagerty who, along with Diane Keaton, has represented the quintessential contemporary suburban neurotic in American cinema for the past 20 years, cannot discover a way to bring this work up from its malnourished roots to a level of interest. The plot involves Hagerty's character's discovery of her husband's infidelity, resulting in her booking a flight to a longed-for Paris, a destination not achieved as she sleeps past the embarkation point in France, and finds herself in Israel with no luggage and little money, taking a place in a kibbutz in order to survive. The director and scriptor, Amos Kollek, son of long-time Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek (who is given a bit part), is also the male lead and romantic interest for Hagerty who has a difficult time, along with the viewer, in adopting the illusion that Kollek is interesting in the least. This activity is within a travelogue frame, resulting in a hybrid of a would-be comedy and propaganda piece. There is no character development, simply a flabby episodic structure marked by a subterranean level of taste. Virtually every scene is belabored by poor editing and sound quality and a lack of direction; only the opening moments, with Hagerty in a New York elevator expounding to all about her of her delight in quitting her employer, has any sparkle to it.

This movie offers some insights into Israeli society and some mild chuckles, but it has not aged well. Its primary purpose appears to have been as a propaganda device for Israel. The plot is weak and conventional.

The main problem I have with the movie are its unsubtle political undertones. Arabs are largely treated as an unseen menace who want to destroy a utopian Israel that sprang from the desert and made it bloom (classic propaganda). The only two Arab characters personify racist movie stereotypes. The trader in the souk is a peeping Tom and cheat, and the Arab who gives camel rides tries to grope the main character, in a perfect example of the 'horney Arab' stereotype.

Yes, I know it wasn't the most profound of films nor the funniest, but it was emmenently enjoyable. I liked how it depicted Israeli life and life on the Kibbutz and in Jerusalem. I was there a few years before this film was made and it was very accurate, based on what I saw. The performances were also believable. So what if it didn't have the special effects of Jurrasic Park. It certainly had a lot more humanity and believable charactors.

Worthless caricatures, vapid storylines, punctuated by moments of decent to above-average cinematography. This is not plain awful, but it is tiresome and boring.

I saw this on the Channel 55 WLNY Late Show and positively savored the commercials that broke this thing up.

I give credit where it's deserved: moments of good cinematography, color, and calm textures. Really, to me those moments stood out during and after.

Negative points for bad film editing, neanderthal script and story, bad camera work to make you forget about the good moments, and good actors wasting their time on this nonsense.