Review: ‘Incitement’ 3 out of 4 Stars

By Kyle Osborne

How does a young man go from being a promising law student with a nice girlfriend to a Right Wing zealot who thinks he’s doing God’s work by killing the Prime Minister of Israel? The new film “Incitement” takes us through those steps, many of which must have seemed rather mundane at the time, but with more than 20 years hindsight, the steps seem eerily similar to things that are happening even as we speak- the political radicalization of young men whose festering anger and disconnect from “normal” society has lead them to commit unspeakable crimes, and that’s just in the  United States.

Based on the true story, and relying to great effect on actual news footage, “Incitement” begins with the real video from the Sept. 13, 1993, when Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, with Presiident Clinton and PLO Chairman Yasser Araft looking on, announces the Oslo Accords, the declaration of principles of the Oslo peace accords. It seemed that peace might be within reach.

At that moment, Yigal Amir (played by Nahari Halevi in a remarkably controlled performance) a law student and a devoted Orthodox Jew, feels that Rabin has sold out his countrymen by ceding territory that he and others believe is rightfully theirs. The initial reaction is public (if not peaceful) protest, but as the date of the accord approaches, Amir’s vehement opposition turns much darker. He’s on the road to extremism and, finally, on his way to history in the worst way, as the man who assasinated Rabin in 1995.

That’s not a spoiler- it happened, but I will leave the details of this man’s descent into hate while using religion as his excuse for you to discover while watching. Director Ron Lesham reportedly spent several years meticulously researching the material and you can feel that attention to detail throughout.

Even if you know the basic facts (and I knew nothing about Amir) there is still much to uncover. Nothing excuses the crime, certainly this film doesn’t sugarcoat the content, but it is interesting and possibly instructive to see how these killers go from “nice boys” to perpetrators of extremist violence. Sometimes right before our eyes.