"The Band's Visit" tells the story of an Egyptian police band sent to play at the opening of an Arab Cultural Center in Israel. En route, the group gets confused by similar-sounding town names and gets off their bus at the wrong stop, a small, isolated dumpy town in the middle of a huge expanse of nothing.

Tension in the movie is created by the conflict between the band's leader, the embittered, pompous old fart, Tawfiq (Sasson Gabay), and the handsome, horny, rebellious young cadet, Halad (Saleh Bakri) -- read James Dean. What this proves is that no matter where you go in the world an old movie cliche isn't far away.

The landscapes in the film are so desolate that at first I thought the filmmakers had decided to make this movie on the cheap and shoot the exteriors in California's Central Valley. Frankly, if this is the Promised Land, I'm converting to Mormonism and moving to Salt Lake City. At least they have a Walmart and the beach at their dead sea isn't covered with shell casings and burned out tanks.

The band's welcome to the village is exemplified as a couple of teenagers drive up in a Volkswagen and razz the group as they are walking along the side of a desolate road. This also exemplifies a mysterious modern phenomenon: Jews driving German cars. Note to Jews: Stop driving German cars! It bugs me and I'm not even Jewish. No one should be that tolerant.

Once in town, the band meets Dina (Ronit Elkabetz), who is the sassy (i.e. obnoxious) owner of a hole-in-the wall diner. If you ever wondered what happened to Rhoda Morgenstern, she's living in a Soviet-style apartment block in a backwater hellhole in Israel.

Apparently, huck towns are the same everywhere. Outside Dina's rundown restaurant, local unemployed rubes sit, with vacant stares on their faces. Implausibly, Dina offers to house some of the stranded band members for the night, and convinces two of her bench-sitting pals to do likewise.

The rest of the film follows the awkward attempts by the Arabs and Israelis to find common ground as they share space for the night. For example, one point of plot resolution comes as the now-sentimental Tawfiq stands misty-eyed in the the doorway of Dina's bedroom watching as Halad parts Dina's Red Sea in a furious carnal act of international, multicultural understanding. Nothing will provoke tender fatherly instincts in an older man than watching a younger man banging a woman he met four hours earlier.

Balanced on the edge of the Arab-Israeli divide, yet paced like a melting glacier, this Seinfeldian movie about nothing eventually proves just that.

Wacky Academy Awards side note. "The Band's Visit" was disqualified from competing for an Oscar for Best Foreign Film, because this film, produced by Israelis, filmed by Israelis, set in Israel, and featuring an all Israeli and Arab cast had too many English words in it and, apparently, too many obtuse references to Chet Baker. There's your proof: Hollywood does hate America.

--Oddball