A sad, honest movie about the day-to-day courage and stoicism of decent people who cling to the lowest rung of the social ladder.
Comment
01/20/07
Man Push Cart (2006)
87 %
Reviews Counted: 45 Fresh: 39 Rotten:6 Average Rating: 6.9/10
Consensus:
This compassionate portrait of a New York City street vendor is as beautiful as it is melancholy.
Rated: 15
Runtime: 87 mins
Theatrical Release: 06-10-2006
Synopsis: It's 3:00 a.m. in Manhattan, the hour of rumbling garbage trucks, glaring headlights, and the bluish florescent glow of the all-night delis. Trudging alongside the honking traffic, Ahmad drags a coffee and bagel cart to a busy midtown corner. Hours later, he is swiftly and efficiently... [More]
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Leticia Dolera, Charles Daniel Sandoval, Ahmad Razvi, Ali Reza
Director: Ramin Bahrani
Reviews
Unfortunately, the characters are so tediously one dimensional, poorly scripted and amateurishly acted, that the most sympathetic character is a neglected kitten.
10/10/06
Top Critic
The performances and storyline are pretty perfunctory. But the nocturnal images of Razvi hauling his metallic cart through traffic that barely notices his existence eloquently encapsulate the émigré experience.
10/07/06
Top Critic Top Critic
What begins as a delineation of a man in a landscape becomes a study in sadness and stoicism, disorientation and even desperation, then finally, a delicate, rewarding and cliché-free enquiry into the complex heart of the lone immigrant experience.
06/24/06
Top Critic
Fiction, but always with one foot firmly planted in a grim post-9/11 reality, the cast and crew got called terrorists by people passing by the set, and with a visit from the FBI to see if the film set was a coverup to conceal a terrorist plot in progress.
10/30/07
The darkly realistic cinematography of Michael Simmonds gives the film a near-documentary style in its depiction of the endless, physically draining work.
10/12/07
Recalling Italian neorealist movies such as The Bicycle Thief, Man Push Cart is a slice of a very sad life.
05/03/07
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04/28/07
A sad, powerful, austere experience of a movie, this is the story of a man who has known profound, compound loss.
03/12/07
Man Push Cart, written and directed by Ramin Bahrani, attempts to put a human face on the men (and it is generally men) who work inside these tin boxes.
01/11/07
A slow-burn stunner, where nothing much of consequence happens, except life itself.
01/04/07
The makers of Man Push Cart seem so dedicated to making a film that defies Hollywood conventions that the finished product lacks enough entertainment value to justify price of admission.
12/08/06
Man Push Cart is likely too slow to pull in much of an audience, but that's a shame, because it has so much empathy for the plight of the lonely.
12/08/06
Michael Simmond's cinematography, especially in scenes of Ahmad muscling his way amid evening traffic and early-morning delivery trucks, is wonderfully true to the moods of a city that never sleeps and seldom nods at the hard work going on before it.
12/01/06
Shot in three weeks, Man Push Cart does a fine job of capturing the bitter flavor of Ahmad's life.
12/01/06
Free of contrived melodrama and phony suspense, it ennobles the hard work by which its hero earns his daily bread.
10/20/06
Top Critic
Ahmad's concerns -- his sadness and his striving -- become universal. Though his early-morning riser's world is gray and threaded with melancholy, it becomes, in the end, a place we recognize.
10/19/06
Man Push Cart is a solemn mood piece that hovers somewhere between bittersweet and despairing.
10/13/06
Related Forums
(ND/NF)-Ramin Bahrani's MAN PUSH CART gets a NYC preem @ New Directors/New Films fest
by: REEL_REVIEWER 10/15/07
by: REEL_REVIEWER 10/15/07
(ND/NF)-Ramin Bahrani's MAN PUSH CART gets a NYC preem @ New Directors/New Films fest
by: REEL_REVIEWER 10/15/07
by: REEL_REVIEWER 10/15/07
(ND/NF)-Ramin Bahrani's MAN PUSH CART gets a NYC preem @ New Directors/New Films fest
by: REEL_REVIEWER 10/15/07
by: REEL_REVIEWER 10/15/07
(ND/NF)-Ramin Bahrani's MAN PUSH CART gets a NYC preem @ New Directors/New Films fest
by: REEL_REVIEWER 10/15/07
by: REEL_REVIEWER 10/15/07
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