Someone Else's America (1995)

User Rating:

6.6/10   

Director:

Goran Paskaljevic

Writer:

Gordan Mihic (writer)

Release Date:

10 May 1996 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Tagline:

Two friends, two worlds, one dream.

Plot:

This tale take place in a bar. The Spanish Alonso and his blind mother run this place. Bay, who is Alonso's friend live here too...

Plot Keywords:

Immigration

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Tom Conti	...	Alonso
Miki Manojlovic	...	Bayo
María Casares	...	Alonso's Mother
Zorka Manojlovic	...	Bayo's Mother
Sergej Trifunovic	...	Lukas
José Ramón Rosario	...	Panchito
Lanny Flaherty	...	Guide
Mihalis Giannatos	...	Greek Agent (as Michalis Yannatos)
Michael Willis	...	Foreman
Predrag Ejdus	...	Doctor
Chia-Ching Niu	...	Chinese Girl
Andjela Stojkovic	...	Savka
Lazar Kalmic	...	Pepo
Ananda Ellis	...	Afisi
John Norman Thomas	...	Afisi's Brother

Also Known As:

L'Amérique des autres
Paradies, Brooklyn (Germany)
Tudja Amerika (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia: Serbo-Croatian title)

MPAA:

Rated R for language and brief sexuality.

Runtime:

96 min

Country:

France | UK | Germany | Greece | Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

Language:

Serbo-Croatian

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Argentina:Atp | Australia:MA | Germany:6 (bw) | Spain:7 | Sweden:7 | UK:15 | USA:R

Company:

Canal+

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: At the end of the movie as the family are loading the car to drive to San Francisco, the track for the camera is visible in the reflection on the car door and side.

Quotes:

Alonso: I got no luck in America. I never gonna get married.

Better than most of the run-of-the-mill Hollywood stuff rolling into theaters every Friday, but I expected more from Paskaljevic

Decent work, but most of this is very safe, tried and tested material.

Tom Conti and Miki Manojlovic both do a good job but they can pretty much sleepwalk through this movie, so little is required of them. I really expected Paskaljevic, who's done much better work both before and after this movie, to pick more challenging material then this familiar and overused "coming to America, starting new life, oh it's tough but we'll try to make it after all" stuff for his American debut.

At the end of the day, the only thing that stands out is Sergej Trifunovic in his first performance on film, playing Bajo's (Miki Manojlovic) older son. Him and Bajo get some memorable exchanges. I was so glad that they made Trifunovic's character to be unscrupulous and oily, who in spite of, or rather because of that turns out to be the only one who succeeds in the new country. In a lesser Hollywood movie, I'm sure that stubborn old Bajo would in the end be the one enjoying American good life and his unmoral son would be getting what's coming to him.