Okay, there are for now two reviews about this film, a raving one, and a dumping one...I'd like to insert mine in the middle, and say this is a good comedy, very unequal though.
First, the plot : in a little central Asian country no one has ever heard of in the West, Tabulistan, the Great Leader is exasperated by his country's anonymity ; but his son, Yafaraz Weshmagül, has had a fine idea : commercial terrorism! Just bomb the most visited monument in the world, the Eiffel Tower, and the world will know at last about us! Two shepherds, half-brothers are recruited as martyrs, trained in french (hilarious), and voilà,off they're sent to France! Only of course they'll have plenty of problems, leading them to visit a few regions before reaching the target under the protection of a young female journalist, who sincerely believes they're refugees, and eventually getting infected by a surreptitious change of mind about killing innocent people and dying in the process.
Now there are some absolutely sublime moments in this film : all the scenes in Taboulistan are fantastic, the "tawa", the villagers morning dance, is to die for, the way the two shepherds negotiate their heavenly reward : " virgins, firstly, one never knows! secondly, they don't know how make good love, they don't know how make good food! we want OLDER women!" ; warning, however, the jokes rely also for a good chunk on a fine understanding of the french language, i.e. when little leader Weshmagül (there's a pun in his name BTW), who has chosen the code name "Alain Houellebecq" for the operation, asks his men to repeatedly scream his new name(get it?).
I would also put in the best moments the rugby match and the scene with the psycho kid from the suburbs, who's in charge of supplying the explosive.
But there are also quite a lot of unbalanced, or simply too caricaturing, or just unfunny stuff...Too bad.
Anyway the best in this film is so good (really!) that it's worth watching it once at least.
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