In the light of what has been happening in nearby Gaza, this small but memorable film assumes an even greater impact.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 11, 2014

Its most compelling element, however, is the relationship between informer and informant.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 7, 2014

Bethlehem's plot is nothing new; it's the oft-told Cain and Abel story updated for the age of suicide bombers and tactical strikes, as a tautly structured mix of melodrama and ticking-clock thriller.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Apr 4, 2014

Cinematographer Yaron Scharf shoots Bethlehem like a modern western, every grimace, twitch and drop of sweat playing in stark relief against an implacable landscape that has seen much spilled blood.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 4, 2014

The politics of "Bethlehem" are complex, but the relationship at its heart is simple: a kid who needs some kind of stability in his life, even if it comes from a most unlikely, and dangerous, place.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 27, 2014

A rich, multilayered character study cleverly garbed as an action thriller, Bethlehem is a searing critique of the conflict and its toll - not just in human lives, but also in two peoples' gradual, overall loss of humanity.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 21, 2014

Bethlehem remains a fairly powerful experience because so much of what we see is inflamed by a violence that seems to have no end.

| Original Score: B | Mar 7, 2014

The film wanders a bit when it leaves [its] primary concern, and you can almost feel the film scattering its taut energy, but when it stays with the two leads, one Israeli, one Palestinian, it makes a compelling story.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 7, 2014

The filmmakers don't settle for palliatives. Each side is wrong, each side is right, and both have their brutalities.

| Mar 6, 2014

A taut, expertly constructed, and suspenseful police procedural, it also explores the issues of loyalty, trust, betrayal, and revenge that those engaged in such morally ambiguous activities would prefer not to think about.

Full Review | Mar 6, 2014

"Bethlehem" is about the Arab-Israeli struggle, naturally, but finds its real emotional heat in the internecine conflicts that keep an insurgency raging and a people off-balance.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 6, 2014

Adler nicely harnesses the mounting volatility of this situation, which builds to an intense if tragic conclusion.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 6, 2014

The movie has the taut efficiency of a well-constructed crime thriller, while its real-world underpinnings play out with a less convincing sense of urgency.

| Mar 6, 2014

By its conclusion, this fascinating film has informed its viewers more than a hundred political essays could.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 6, 2014

Director Yuval Adler has a big vision, one capable of looking upon unsympathetic characters with sympathy or at least humane comprehension.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 6, 2014

A slickly plotted ticking-time-bomb thriller with a crisp look and one standout debut performance, by Hitham Omari as a ruthless leader of a terrorist cell.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 6, 2014

The rare movie that feels too short.

| Original Score: B+ | Mar 6, 2014

Mar'i and Halevi invest deeply, but the film manipulates them to an abrupt end; viewers will undoubtedly supply their own opinions about the cynical game of covert warfare.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 4, 2014

An unstinting look at the impossible choices faced by Israelis and Palestinians caught between worlds, Bethlehem plumbs the destructive aspects of the double-agent mode of statecraft.

| Mar 4, 2014

The suspense plot is effective yet familiar; the direction is brisk, even hasty, and impersonal.

| Mar 3, 2014