Metallic Blues

When Shmuel and Siso, two hapless used-car dealers in Israel, stumble on the chance to buy a spotless, blue 1985 Lincoln Continental limousine for $5,000, they figure their luck has finally turned. All they need to do is ship the classic beauty to Germany, sell it to a collector and return as heroes with a handsome profit. So begins this offbeat, funny and touching buddy movie that brings together the irrepressible Avi Kushner and sad-sack Moshe Ivgy on a road trip from hell. Ivgy plays diminutive Siso, a Moroccan Jew with family obligations, who is suspicious of the scheme and queasy about traveling to the land of the Holocaust. His friend Shmuel, a shmoozer who can bluster his way into (though not always out of) any situation, is the child of Holocaust survivors and long ago turned the page on that history. For him, Germany is the ultimate modern European marketplace, its sleek airports and posh hotels the stuff of consumer dreams. The adventures of these two as their plan unravels will test their friendship, and bring up unexpected emotions about the Jewish past in Germany, as well.