Checkout, a debut feature by Jonathan Dekel, which opened throughout Israel on Thursday, is a spy movie parody that plays like a shaggy dog story, filled with ideas and metaphors.
Mostly in English, it tells the story of a shlumpy American-born Mossad agent, Dov (Josh Pais), who spends most of the movie in a shabby hotel in Istanbul in the 1990s, pretending he’s writing a spy novel. He has been ordered to retire but he’s chasing one last triumph that will convince his Mossad superiors that he was truly worthy of the intelligence service.
A key subtext of the movie is the sometimes not-so-friendly relationship between American Jews who want to become “real Israelis” and the Sabras who keep reminding them of all the ways that they don’t fit in.
The movie opens with Dov saying, “Israelis, they think they’re so special. They think they’re the only ones that can tell a story. Well, the last time I checked, Hollywood is in America. I can tell a story. My life depends on it.”
The movie unfolds as he is being interrogated by several Mossad agents, among them the super-macho Felix (Aki Avni) and the tough-as-nails Tessa (Yael Sharoni), who speaks upper-class British English.
Instead of getting right to his questions – Dov is suspected of going rogue and committing a murder – Felix starts by boasting of his exploits in the field, in Lebanon and Gaza, the clichéd Mossad heroism stories that have inspired so much fiction.
Dov, who has the persona of a cerebral American Jewish prince, wants to be skeptical but can’t be. He’s been raised to worship guys like this, and more than anything, he wants to be one of them.
But, in a refrain that is repeated in both English and Hebrew throughout the movie, Dov notes that, “There are two tragedies in life. Not getting what you want and getting what you want.”
Eventually, Felix shuts up, and Dov’s story gets going. He is or isn’t writing a book in a hotel room in Turkey, where a huge old television set is generally tuned to the news, showing the post-Oslo Accords terror attacks by Hamas in Israel.
Dov wants to do something big, but he hangs around the lobby, pretending to read a book, and striking up a flirty friendship with Eden (Dar Zuzovsky), a gorgeous bartender who wants to go to art school but doesn’t have the money.
When Amal (Norman Issa), an Arab businessman, shows up with his much younger girlfriend, Bisan (Serine Sianosian), Dov is sure he has found the target for his last mission, convinced that Amal is a notorious terrorist whose family was killed in an airstrike.
So he begins to carry out surveillance on Amal, and is surprised at how easily the Arab seems to fall into his net. They bond, going running and swimming together. But all is not as it seems at first with anyone in this hotel.
Dekel, who is a director/screenwriter with the soul of a stand-up comic, is best at letting Dov be his most neurotic, aggrieved self, hungry for the approval of Mossad agents like Felix, or another one, Red (Oz Zehavi), who is sent either to get in his way or help him. Like just about everyone else in this movie, his motivations tend to be murky, or maybe they are just constantly shifting.
The movie is a comedy with darker themes
The tone is mostly sardonic and comic, but the darker themes keep popping up, and the tragedy of the unending cycle of violence in the Middle East coexists uneasily at times with the comedy. Checkout reminded me of a combination of an early Woody Allen movie crossed with the best spy spoofs, like the Austin Powers or the OSS 117 movies.
Josh Pais gives an amazing performance as Dov, creating a character who is a petulant schnook, but who somehow makes you root for him. Pais recently appeared in the series A Man in Full and The Dropout, and the movie You Hurt My Feelings. The rest of the cast, especially Aki Avni and Yael Sharoni, have a good time playing with all the Israeli spy-story stereotypes.
While the movie isn’t that long, it meanders at times, and Dov’s frantic attempts at gaining a totally Israeli identity will resonate more with most viewers than the darker story about the conflict.