Land of Plenty

Highly acclaimed international filmmaker Wim Wenders co-wrote and directed this absorbing if heavy-handed exploration of life in post-9/11 America, which portrays the widely diverse reactions of two family members to the apparently random shooting of a homeless man of Middle Eastern descent. Troubled Vietnam vet Paul Jeffries (John Diehl) sees potential terrorists lurking around every corner of downtown Los Angeles, while his idealistic niece Lana (Michelle Williams), working at a local homeless shelter, worries about the fear that seems to grip her fellow Americans. Wenders is an undeniably gifted artist, and he undoubtedly hopes to challenge viewers' attitudes about responses to 9/11 and the resulting war on terror. But he oversimplifies and even offers as caricatures—albeit subtly—those characters in the film that, to him, represent reactionary thinking, so that we are left with the impression that Paul and those like him are not so much real people as they are symbols of some nascent fascistic, nativist movement. More agitprop than compelling or believable, Land of Plenty is not a necessary purchase. (E. Hulse)