IMDb Plot: Driving a cab wasn't his first option, but that's a long story.

Director: Daniel Joseph

What’s Best: Joseph captures pre-Civil War Lebanon better than any other filmmaker to date. Just the right attention (and humor) is given to what others might mistake as insignificant. Subtle lines like Adnan the barber’s ‘Sit down, the country’s going to shambles,’ play perfectly against great physical comedy, including a carjacking disaster (for the carjacker) to the film’s best sequence (Carlo the Tiger vs. Jabir the Foreigner) that culminates in an arm wrestling contest/fart-off you have to see (and hear) to believe.

What’s Not: Taxi Ballad is loaded with individual moments of brilliance, but Joseph seems to have a difficult time putting them all together. Ultimately, it becomes a story about nothing... which isn’t necessarily bad; but disappointing, given how good the rest of the film is.

Best Line: Fart jokes are easy, but Jabir’s unanswered pleas for ‘Time out! Time out!’ during a poorly-timed gas attack are hysterical. A young Youssef’s (Firas Barakat) ‘He had become the singing Romeo’ regarding Carlo (Bakhos Safi) and a beautiful stranger (Linda Mahdi) ranks a close second.

Overall: A lack of cohesiveness is all that prevents Taxi Ballad from near perfection. Megan Fox look-alike Karina Logue (True Blood) breathes life into the film’s second frame... especially when she offers Youssef (Talal El-Jordi) her ex-boyfriend’s inhaler on their first date (Who keeps stuff like that in their purse?) El-Jordi does a solid job as the “greatest taxi driver in Lebanon,” but his character proves a little too vanilla for my liking: He seemed a lot more interesting when he was a kid. Worth seeing for the flashbacks alone, and some breathtaking footage of Beirut (one of the most beautiful cities in the world.)