Omar is a 2013 film from Palestine, directed by Harry Abu-Assad.
Omar is a young man growing up in the occupied West Bank. He's in love with his best friend Tarek's sister, Nadia, and hopes to marry her. He is also part of a little guerilla cell along with Tarek and their other friend, Amjad. After training with a rifle they go out one night and successfully shoot and kill an Israeli soldier guarding a checkpoint, with Amjad reluctant being the one to pull the trigger.
The three make a getaway, but Omar is soon scooped up in an Israeli raid. He is tricked into a confession by an agent named Rami (Waleed Zuaiter). Facing a 90-year prison sentence, and after a good deal of torture, Omar agrees to turn informant and help Rami capture Tarek, whom Rami thinks was the shooter. However, after he's released Omar tells Tarek everything and they plan to turn the tables with an ambush on the Israelis. But there are still more betrayals.
Tropes:
- Answer Cut: Rami tries to get Omar to agree to be an informant. After Omar refuses, Rami says "We'll do it your way." Cut to Omar getting released, having agreed to be an informant—with his face badly cut from getting hit repeatedly.
- Ask a Stupid Question...: Amjad asks how Omar made it over to Tarek's place and Omar says "I took the noon flight. The morning one was full." As Amjad well knows, Omar had to use a rope to climb the 25-foot-high West Bank barrier
(and he almost got shot). - Binocular Shot: Seen as the three men watch the Israeli checkpoint, right before they shoot the soldier.
- Call-Back: Tarek tells an anecdote about how hunters catch monkeys in Africa—they get them addicted to sugar then put sugar cubes in traps. At the very end of the film Omar asks this same question of Rami right before shooting him.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Omar is beaten in jail and gets a cigarette lighter applied to his testicles before he agrees to become an informant.
- Cut Himself Shaving: Nadia asks "What happened to your nose?", and Omar answers "I fell off a bicycle." In actuality an Israeli soldier hit him in the face with a rifle butt.
- Dead Man Writing: Omar, who knows what he's going to do and that he isn't coming back from his meeting with Rami, writes a letter to Nadia which she is seen reading. The contents of the letter aren't revealed but presumably he tells her that Amjad betrayed her brother.
- Foot Popping: Nadia does this when she and Omar have their first kiss after he gets out of jail.
- Gun Struggle: When Tarek is told that Amjad was the traitor he pulls his gun. A struggle ensues in which Tarek is killed.
- Hassle-Free Hotwire: Omar is able to quickly hotwire the car that he steals to drive the other men to their observation post, where they shoot the Israeli soldier.
- I Never Got Any Letters: Nadia tells Omar that she wrote him a letter before she got married—but Amjad never sent it.
- Let the Past Burn: After marrying Nadia off to Amjad because he belives that Amjad got her pregnant (in fact, Amjad lied), Omar tosses her letters and her picture into the oven at the bakery.
- Love Triangle: Omar eventually finds out that Amjad wanted Nadia for himself and manipulated events so that people would think Omar is the traitor.
- Match Cut: From the fire of the burning car after Omar sets it on fire, to a hunk of wood burning in the oven of the bakery where Omar works.
- P.O.V. Cam: Used a couple of times for scenes where Omar is running down the narrow alleyways of the West Bank, fleeing from Israeli police.
- The Reveal: Omar's happy-go-lucky friend Amjad is the traitor, who not only betrayed the restaurant ambush plan to the Israelis, but told them that Tarek was the man who shot the soldier when actually Amjad himself did.
- Roof Hopping: Running from Israeli cops, Omar flees to the roof of a building, runs across it, and takes a flying leap onto a balcony across the way.
- Significant Background Event: Omar and Tarek are sitting in a restaurant, waiting for the rendezvous/ambush. As Omar wonders if Hassam was really the traitor, two men can be seen across the street setting out a dumpster and throwing a couple of bags of trash in it. Moments later the two men pull out automatic weaponry and spray the restaurant with bullets.
- Smash to Black: A smash to black timed with the gunshot that ends the movie as Omar kills Rami, followed by Silent Credits.
- Time Skip: A comment from Omar that he hasn't seen Amjad in two years leads to the last 15 minutes of the movie and the climax.
- Urban Segregation: As in Real Life, the West Bank is behind a 25-foot-wall, and some of it is on the other side of the wall, which is why Omar has to risk his life climbing it to see Nadia.
