NEW YORK -- "The War Within" is the first American feature to examine terrorism through the eyes of a Muslim terrorist. It concerns a Pakistani immigrant who's part of an Islamic terrorist cell in New York. While film does not -- and, of course, should not -- try to evoke any sympathy for the perverse aims of its protagonist, it does a fairly good job of laying out the basic political motives behind Islamic terrorism. Unfortunately, as a drama, it has its narrative peak in the middle and quickly runs out of story afterward.

Director Joseph Castelo's second feature likely will attract politically aware audiences in upscale urban venues. Boxoffice success will depend on whether reviewers find it a deep enough analysis of the subject. The film opens Sept. 30 in New York.

The story, from an idea by leading actor Ayad Aktar, which he co-scripted with Castelo and Tom Glynn, starts violently. Hassan (Aktar) is picked up in the streets of Paris and deported to Karachi because his dead brother was a terrorist. The mild-mannered young man is radicalized in Pakistan and relocates to New York as part of an Islamic terrorist cell planning to blow up Grand Central Station.

Hassan moves in with Pakistani friends who have no interest in his terrible agenda. The attack is called off because of increased security, and Hassan has a short time to hear contradictory views about his beliefs. But he has become too radicalized to change his mind and continues with his plan to suicide-bomb the station.

The first half of the film is good. Castelo cuts between brief scenes of Hassan's radicalization in Karachi and his underhand efforts to plan the crime in New York. Pacing and editing are crisp and propel the story along while laying the foundations for a psychological examination of the would-be mass murderer. But things fall apart at the midpoint.

When the attack is called off, the story suddenly has nowhere to go. Castelo does spend time allowing characters to voice opinions about Western imperialism. But any serious character analysis is dropped in favor of messy plotting involving a romance and plans for a new terrorist atrocity.

Castelo leaves the most interesting part of the story out of the film. Why seemingly nonviolent and relatively affluent young men decide to become suicide bombers is one of today's most pressing questions. Castelo never probes this psychology deeper than offering a few casual thoughts about American foreign policy. What drives Hassan to become a suicide bomber is insufficiently explored, and the motives that are offered will hardly be new to those with even a marginal knowledge of current affairs. A 1997 British film "My Son the Fanatic" offered a much better analysis of why and how young Muslim men become radicalized.

Considering the clear and present danger posed by Islamic terrorism, it's amazing that no independent American filmmakers have dared to make a feature examining it before. So, in spite of its narrative shortcomings, it's still refreshing that Castelo, backed by New York's HDNet Films, has decided to approach the subject directly.

THE WAR WITHIN
Magnolia Pictures
HDNet Films
Credits:
Director: Joseph Castelo
Screenwriters: Joseph Castelo, Ayad Aktar, Tom Glynn
Producers: Jason Kliot, Joana Vicente, Tom Glynn
Executive producers: Todd Wagner, Mark Cuban
Director of photography: Lisa Rinzler
Production designer: Stephanie Carroll
Music: David Holmes
Costumes: Sylvia Grieser
Editor: Malcolm Jamieson
Cast:
Hassan: Ayad Aktar
Sayeed: Firdous Bamji
Duri: Nandana Sen
Farida: Sarita Choudhury
Khalid: Charles Daniel Sandoval
Ali: Varun Sriram
Rasheeda: Anjeli Chapman
Abdul: Aasif Mandvi
Running time -- 100 minutes
No MPAA rating