MIDDLETOWN – Marc Benhuri, a real-life Manhattan dentist, is Iran’s Harriet Tubman. As the protagonist of Price For Freedom, an independently produced film of epic proportions, Benhuri created his own Underground Railroad to facilitate the escape of dozens of persecuted people during 1979’s Iranian Revolution. Price For Freedom, not yet released but premiering as the opening night movie next week at Hoboken International Film Festival, is pound-for-pound the writing, acting and production value equal of similar-themed recent blockbusters Argo and Zero Dark Thirty. Price For Freedom, however, offers something different than those award-winning studio movies: it’s the first narrative feature film to fully explain the birth of modern-day Islamic terrorism. And it powerfully and intelligently does it through the eyes of Benhuri (an Iranian Jew) and another real-life character, Mesha Nahavandi, a chador-garbed serial killing Muslim woman, who could become the most memorable movie character of 2015. This film has award nominations – and wins – written all over it.
Eric Etobari, Paul Sorvino and Navid Negahban with two royal helpers
after the Shah’s dental exam
Benhuri, who authored an autobiographical book that the movie is based
upon, fictionalized all of the non-public persons’ names, including his
own; in the book and movie, he is known as Dr. Victor Daniels (Navid Negahban
of “Homeland” fame), an Iranian national who immigrated to the
United States as an 18-year-old in 1964. Daniels obtains degrees in both
dentistry and mechanical engineering, and he becomes one of the inventors
of dental implants. The Shah of Iran (Paul Sorvino – Goodfellas) eventually
retains Daniels as his personal dentist in 1976, but takes such a liking
to the physician that he provides him an automotive factory monopoly in
Iran after learning that Daniels had one small factory in New York. Within
three years, Daniels, with the aid of his father (Vachik Mangassarian
– The Stoning of Soraya M) and brother-in-law (Ramsey Faragallah –
also from “Homeland”), catapults the factories into a $350 million
business. This all comes to a crashing halt, though, when the Shah is
overthrown by the infamous and ruthless religious dictator, the Ayatollah
Khomeini.
As the Shah travels to the safety of the United States, Khomeini launches a series of kangaroo court trials – and executions – at the judicial hand of a subordinate cleric, Ayatollah Khalkhali (The Karate Kid’s Martin Kove). Equally brutal as his superior, Khalkhali kicks off the executions by having a firing squad murder Daniels’s best friend, Cyrus Nahavandi, the Shah’s Director of Economic Policy. This triggers two entirely different paths of response and revenge: Daniels’s escape plans and Mesha’s (Nahavandi’s young and beautiful wife) killing rampage.
Daniels cleverly plots intricate Iranian exits for his parents and friends, jeopardizing his own life with each route to freedom. Mesha commences her retribution by assassinating a series of fundamentalist ayatollahs, mullahs, and soldiers, ultimately joining the Mujahedeen, a rebel group that first organized against the Shah but later turned on the Ayatollah Khomeini. For her efforts, Mesha became a national folk hero, known as the Chadored Killer (she adorned the traditional headdress while carrying out her assassinations). Daniels ultimately became a key advisor to President Ronald Reagan, and was instrumental in the release of the American hostages kidnapped by Khomeini. The brave and often crazed paths of Daniels and Mesha cross in many ways during their journeys, with several exciting, controversial and unexpected twisting turns throughout the film. This movie isn’t just entertaining, it’s important. Highly important.
Benhuri’s book was masterfully adapted to a movie version by screenwriters Kenneth Del Vecchio and Dylan Bank. Del Vecchio is also the film’s producer, while Bank serves as the director. With a style reminiscent of Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America, the filmmakers seamlessly take the audience in and out of varied time periods. Opening with a late 1980 President-Elect Ronald Reagan meeting with Daniels and outgoing Jimmy Carter staffers, the film quickly transitions to two years earlier, identifying Khomeini’s hostile Iranian takeover. Its next stop is Daniels’s 1976 first dealings with the Shah, and then travels back to 1950s Iran – to learn of Daniels’s chaotic and often frightening upbringing in the Jewish ghetto. Weaving back and forth through these time periods for much of the film allows the audience to fully understand not only the personal histories of Daniels and Mesha, but also the events that led to the Iranian Revolution and the Islamic terrorism that occurs today. The screenwriting is simply brilliant. Del Vecchio, who not only is the writer/producer of 25 movies, is also a former judge and the author of several bestselling novels and legal books, was the right choice to adapt this book for a motion picture.
Del Vecchio’s partnership with Bank – a frequent one that has yielded the recent cult classic horror flick Scavenger Killers among other notable films – nets the perfect mix of dynamic storytelling and powerful filmmaking. Bank maintains a fast-paced, character-driven thriller with organic performances, production design, wardrobe and music composition (the score is magnificent). The look of the film is rich with beautiful color and stylized shots. It’s clear that Bank took the time to carefully plan each shot to further enhance the integrity of every moment in this classically made film.
Price For Freedom could have fallen apart if the production was miscast. It wasn’t. The right actors were hired to deliver the very necessary authentic performances. Negahban, an Iranian national who has had considerable success in American TV and film (he just played a key role in American Sniper), was steady and confident as the plotting and often plodding Daniels. Iranian-born actors Mangassarian, Mary Apick, Sahar Bibiyan, and Shayan Shojaee also rendered wholly realistic and standout performances in key roles as Daniels’s parents and siblings. Memorable and emotional acting moments kept coming, one after another, from a cache of distinct supporting actors, some recognizable names and others less known: Faragallah, Joanne Baron, Evgeniya Radilova, Suzi Lorraine, Yaron Urbas, Obaid Kadwani, and Eric Etebari, to name a few. Borat’s Ken Davitian gave the film its few moments of needed levity as a Kuwaiti sheik, Academy Award nominee Sally Kirkland added a touch of wisdom playing Daniels’s lawyer, “Oz’s” Robert Bogue was believable as Ronald Reagan, and newcomer Daniel Jesse Kaplan was just outstanding as the younger Victor in the 1950s scenes.
The ultimate genius of the casting, however, may center around three unlikely choices. Remembering Sorvino play Henry Kissinger in Oliver Stone’s Nixon, Del Vecchio wrote the role of the Shah of Iran with Sorvino in mind—and Sorvino was the first actor he cast. This was a wickedly smart choice. Sorvino, a master of accents (who was notably snubbed for an Oscar nod as Stone’s Kissinger), delivered the most subtle of Farsi accents to match the Shah’s true gentrified, English-based speech. Most other great actors would have failed and mistakenly gone heavy with the accent. But Sorvino, most known for his gangster roles (a la Goodfellas), has made a career of subsuming himself into characters where he pinpoints the true nature of the character. He doesn’t just do what appears like it is authentic—he does what is actually authentic. He’s that actor (see Reds, Oh God, Nixon) where audiences leave the movie, asking “who was that playing that role?” For his service as the Shah in Price For Freedom, Sorvino may just get that long-awaited award redemption.
Mandy Bruno, a little known Emmy nominated soap actress who has gotten her film break in Del Vecchio movies, has done everything possible in Price For Freedom to obtain critical and fan recognition. She’s just lights out in her performance as the complex, delicate and fierce Mesha. Transforming from being the young wife of an aristocrat to a serial-killing machine, who’s cold and warm all at once, is an incredibly difficult thespian task. Bruno does this with fine precision.
And then there’s Martin Kove, a tough guy character actor from franchise movies such as The Karate Kid and Rambo. Who would’ve known that he could expertly play a smart, vicious Iranian ayatollah judge? I guess a former judge who has previously cast him in several other movies.
The combination of the use of many of producer Kenneth Del Vecchio’s repeat performers and the skills of Hollywood casting director Valerie McCaffrey netted the perfect actors for a very large cast. It’s quite amazing that there weren’t “up and down” performances in this film, like the recent Rosewater which faltered for just that reason. Instead, here, the acting was spot on from beginning to end.
Price For Freedom was a movie with definitely low finances and the challenges of a period piece in a foreign locale, where everything should have went wrong. Instead, it all went right. Veteran filmmakers Del Vecchio and Bank delivered a masterpiece, one which is vital in 2015’s continued struggles with terrorism (that all began in 1979’s Iranian Revolution).
Watch trailer at: www.justiceforallproductions.com/#!price-for-freedom/cv3k or www.JusticeForAllProductions.com.
