The Unknown Saint

Most overlooked movies of 2021

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Photo caption: RIDERS OF JUSTICE, a Magnet release. © Kasper Tuxen. Photo courtesy of Magnet Releasing.

Some of 2021’s best movie experiences are still under the radar. Here are seven films that you shouldn’t overlook.

All are available to stream at home. (There are more overlooked 2021 movies that I could recommend, but I’m not going to tease you with movies that you can’t find.)

  • Riders of Justice: Starring the charismatic Mads Mikkelsen, this character-driven thriller is near the top of my Best Movies of 2021. Riders of Justice has been inadequately described as a revenge thriller and an action comedy. It is gloriously satisfying as entertainment, but the more I think about it, Riders of Justice explores grief, revenge and mortality – they’re all in here. And it’s still very, very funny. Even Denmark overlooked Riders of Justice, submitting Flee as their entry for the Best International Feature Oscar instead. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube.
  • Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road: An unusual documentary about an unusual man.  Brian Wilson, The Beach Boys’ songwriting and arranging genius weighs in on his life and work.  Wilson’s old and trusted friend drove him around important places in his life – in the format of Comedians in Cars Drinking Coffee – and it paid off with oft emotional revelations from the usually monosyllabic Wilson. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and redbox.
  • The Lost Leonardo: This documentary peels back the onion on an ever surprising tale of discovery, scholarship, fraud, commerce and politics in the refined and pretentious art world. Is a rediscovered Renaissance masterpiece authentic, and does it matter? Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and redbox.
  • Wildland: This remarkable Danish neo-noir gives family ties a bad name. The story simmers and evolves into a nail biter right up to its noir-stained epilogue. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu.
THE UNKNOWN SAINT. Photo courtesy of The Match Factory.
  • The Unknown Saint: This delightfully deadpan crime comedy is a shrine to really bad luck. Morocco’s submission for this year’s Best International Feature Oscar. Netflix.
  • Summertime: I can’t remember hearing so much poetry in a movie. This ever vibrant film is about giving voice, the voice of mostly young Los Angelenos, expressing themselves, mostly through poetry. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube and redbox.
  • Ma Belle, My Beauty: This simmering romantic drama is a gorgeous, sexy, character-driven film, an exploration of the post-breakup dynamics of polyamorous queer women. This is a beautiful, absorbing movie with the unexpected appearance of a strap-on. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and redbox.
Idella Johnson, Sivan Noam Shimon and Hannah Pepper in Marion Hill’s film MA BELLE, MY BEAUTY. Courtesy of SFILM.

THE UNKNOWN SAINT: a shrine to really bad luck

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Photo caption: THE UNKNOWN SAINT. Photo courtesy of The Match Factory.

Here’s the premise of the crime comedy The Unknown Saint: a thief is being hunted down in the vast Moroccan desert. Just before capture, he buries his loot on a sandy hilltop and disguises it to look like a grave. After serving time in prison, he returns to dig up his loot. But he finds that some people, believing the “grave” to be that of a saint, have built a mausoleum over the grave. Even worse, an entire village has sprung up to support pilgrimage commerce, and the shrine is guarded around the clock.

The thief (Younes Bouab) starts plotting to sneak in and dig up the loot, but he’s got to overcome, among other obstacles, the night watchman’s canine corps. It doesn’t help when he brings in an accomplice so stupid that he doesn’t get that his prison nickname of “Ahmed the Brain” is ironic. And he is surprised when he is not the only nighttime tomb raider.

The thief has to wait in a village filled with eccentrics and small timers on the hustle. The dispensary has a bored young doctor, an aged nurse with a wicked sense of humor, and a waiting room full of “patients” putting on a charade of medical need.

Younes Bouab in THE UNKNOWN SAINT. Photo courtesy of The Match Factory.

The Unknown Saint is relentlessly deadpan, as all the characters plunge ahead with profound cynicism or earnest absurdity, with at least one critic likening it to Fargo. It’s all very, very funny, especially an unexpected triumph of dog dentistry involving the town barber.

The Unknown Saint is the first feature for writer-director Alaa Eddine Aljem, and it is an auspicious debut. Aljem knows how to use the vastness of the desert to express human futility and how to wring laughs out of human foibles.

The Unknown Saint is Morocco’s submission for this year’s Best International Feature Oscar. The Unknown Saint is streaming from Netflix.