MOVIE REVIEW : ‘GOODBYE, NEW YORK’: HELLO, ISRAEL

“Goodbye, New York” (at the Cineplex, Brentwood Twins and Town & Country) is so inept that it must be stated at the beginning that it’s not representative of the often impressive Israeli cinema.

Feeble as both comedy and travelogue, it wastes lovely Julie Hagerty (“Lost in America”). As in the Brooks film, Hagerty is cast as a yuppie dropout, a Manhattan insurance agent who throws over her job, hoping to run off to Paris with her unemployed husband. Then she catches him in the sack with another woman.

Leaving on her own, she sleeps past Paris, lands with scant funds in Tel Aviv and ends up picking bananas on a kibbutz. Whatever dubious comic possibilities this contrived premise possesses quickly evaporate. Writer-producer-director (and co-star) Amos Kollek, working in English, fails to develop Hagerty’s predicament with either wit or credibility, only a plentitude of tedious complications.

Hagerty, though game, comes off as a tiresome dimwit and her Israeli acquaintances are allowed little charm or dimension. It’s not saying much to state that Kollek, son of longtime Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek (given a cameo in the film), is more effective in front of the camera than behind it, but he does have a warm, down-to-earth presence which could be welcome in another movie--one written and directed by somebody else. “Goodbye, New York” is Times-rated Mature for a few adult situations and language.

‘GOODBYE, NEW YORK’ A Castle Hill presentation of a Kole-Hill production. Writer-producer-director Amos Kollek. Camera Amnon Salomon. Music Michael Abene. Associate producer Mary Jane Cahill. Film editor Alan Heim. With Julie Hagerty, Amos Kollek, David Topaz, Aviva Ger, Shmuel Shiloh, Jennifer Babtist, Christopher Goutman.

Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

Times-rated: Mature.