Palestine’s nominee in the foreign-language film Oscar race is billed as a thriller, but slow to reveal itself that way. The title character (Adam Bakri) is introduced scaling the separation wall in the West Bank, only to have a bullet narrowly miss his skull. The film spends some time building up Omar’s routine, one in which humiliation by the ruling Israelis is always a lurking possibility.
But it transpires that Omar and his childhood friends Tarek (Iyad Hoorani) and Amjad (Samer Bisharat) are planning a sniper attack on an Israeli military outpost. Omar is captured, then released on condition that he become an informant and turn in Tarek, whom the authorities believe to be the shooter. Omar is in love with Tarek’s sister Nadja (Leem Lubany); she’s the one bit of hope he has for the future. What he will do to hang on to Nadja, and through her some semblance of real life, propels the suspense.
Director Hany Abu-Assad (“Paradise Now”) is a smidge overfond of both the remarkable beauty of his romantic leads and his symbolic vocabulary. But he knows how to create a twisty plot full of double-crossing characters, and how to make their fates feel desperately urgent. “Omar” eventually becomes a sun-scorched neo-noir — and the fade-out is an unforgettable jolter.