I'd say this movie was a showcase of ham, but then, I respect Jews. (And no, I'm not Jewish).
First off, Melanie Griffith as a hard-boiled cop is like casting Prissy from "Gone With The Wind" as Dirty Harry. Her "bad-ass mama justice" remarks come off about as well as they would if they were cooed by Linda Lovelace in the script of a porn movie. Seeing her simper and flirt and do all that coy crap around the young Talmudic scholar also disgusted me. I mean, the woman was assigned to investigate a disappearance in the Hasidic community and she shows up in a mini-skirt and says "s**t" in front of the rebbe within the first five minutes of the interview. Was she nodding off during all those diversity training seminars and community relations lectures at the police academy or what? Even if she was, wouldn't you expect someone who grew up in New York to have at least *some* familiarity with Judaism?
She treats every one of the Hasidim with arrogant condescension, in the type of "rude asshole" role that makes a viewer's teeth ache, yet we're supposed to somehow care whether, by the end of the movie, she's managed to understand and perhaps even respect them somewhat. And most of her "respect" is an outgrowth of her having the hots for Rebbe, Jr. Between insulting both Hasidic spirituality and the ability of a woman to perform as a professional without falling for some guy -- I mean, does our "heroine" do this on EVERY assignment or something? -- this movie is a busy two hours. Too bad it wasn't a better spent two hours for me. Thumbs DOWN.
