Kabul Express (15) <!-- none onestar twostar threestar fourstar fivestar -->

This is a real peculiarity: an Indian-made comedy about culture-clash in post-September 11 Afghanistan. Two slightly dim Indian television journalists, in Kabul to try and film the Taliban, end up being kidnapped by a Talib along with their Afghan driver and a pretty American photojournalist. On the way to the Pakistani border (the Talib is a Pakistani soldier in disguise: you may spot some patriotic bias), suspicion gives way to friendship. Presumably this is intended as a touching story about people finding things in common across boundaries of language, race and religion, though you could equally take it as a case study in Stockholm syndrome. The story is silly, the acting uneven, and the film's grasp of reality tenuous; it's certainly a fresh view of the situation, though, unlike anything that could possibly come out of any Western studio.