Eyal (Lior Ashkenazi) is a top assassin in the Israeli secret service.  He has killed terrorists before, but this time he is sent to eliminate an aging former Nazi war criminal.  During his mission, Eyal meets his targets granddaughter and grandson, who inadvertently help him uncover his own troubled history and face his demons, while they discover the ugly truth their family has hidden from them for decades.

CRITIQUE

There is an interesting moment in Walk On Water as Eyal and Axel (Knut Berger), the young German Eyal is chaperoning around Israel, stand washing the salt and sand off after a dip in the Dead Sea.  Naked, they talk casually about circumcision, Axel’s European observations and Eyal’s in the Israeli army.  In Europe, Axel tells Eyal, only the Muslims and the Jews are circumcised.

That kind of similarity probably never occurred to Eyal, who freely admits how he feels about Arabs: “they are animals.”  Eyal is full of hate, close-minded not only about Arabs and Muslims, but about homosexuals, Germans, and who knows what else.  He has a narrow view of the world, his only focus seeming to eradicate the Muslim scourge from the Israeli holy land.  Other points of view never occur to him.  Eyal has been indoctrinated, from an early age, it seems, and goes about his work like the good soldier that he is.

Ashkenazi, who bears a striking resemblance to Steve Carell, does an excellent job of playing Eyal.  He plays him blank.  For all his abilities as a human stalker, he knows little about people.  He is the last to realize that Axel is gay, something that is apparent early on, and when he arrives in Berlin, he is surprised to find it as anything other than a Nazi stronghold, a place where, for the most part, no one really cares that he is Jewish.  The one time that does become an issue – when Eyal and Axel are attacked by neo-Nazis in the subway – the fight seems to come out of nowhere, as though it exists only to fulfill the required quote of action.

The relationship between Axel and Eyal is at the center of the film.  Initially, Eyal is using him to get close to Axel’s grandfather, the Nazi war criminal, but in doing so, he and Axel become friends, and Eyal gets to know something about Germany, the country from which his own parents fled during World War II.  He cannot think about Germany without thinking about himself.  Eyal comes quite a ways from his position early in the film, when his response to the assignment is simply to tell his boss that “nobody gives a damn” about Nazis anymore.

The story is not exactly a new one, but director Eytan Fox puts an interesting new spin on it.  The film’s flaw is that it does not go far enough.  More time is spent on homosexuality than race, and the comments made are mostly superficial. 

Eyal does eventually meet the aging Nazi, a man so old and decrepit that he is only a shell of the man, the soldier he once was.  Not that it matters, as Eyal is past whatever notion of duty he may have felt.  Eyal does the only thing he can: he simply stops.

The Israeli film industry is still just getting off the ground, but Walk On Water is a solid, steady first step.  The location filming in Israel is interesting in its own way.  Fox and company show the country as a place where real people actually live, something wholly different than what we see on the nightly news.  While the political view is not the most balanced, it is also not totally one-sided.  Walk On Water is not perfect, but it is entertaining, and it whets the appetite for what might come next.

THE VIDEO

Walk On Water is presented in the original 1.85:1 shooting ratio in anamorphic video.  The picture quality is sharp, and the color levels are well rendered.  The presentation is free of defects and represents the original photography as well as can be expected.

THE AUDIO

This DVD offers tracks in English, Hebrew and German, all in Dolby Digital 5.1.  The presentation is crisp, clear through all channels.  The audio is solid, but it does not stand out.

THE EXTRAS

The case of this DVD says that there is a Making-of Featurette, but it is nowhere to be found on the DVD.  The only “bonus material” we have here are previews for other films, not exactly a selling point.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Walk On Water is a solid, competent film, but it is also one of those movies you get the first time.  Far from complex, the filmmakers seem content with keeping their points superficial.  The lack of bonus material here makes the disc that much less appealing as a purchase, but that does not mean it is not worth watching.