Said and Khaled are good friends living in the war torn West Bank, they are also freedom fighters and have just been given the honoured, if unenviable, task of conducting a suicide mission in the heart of Tel Aviv. Remarkably, given the subject matter, Paradise Now retains a certain, if admittedly surreal, normality throughout much of the film and, though dark, there is a realistic, if doom-laden, vein of humour, even a whiff of romance. Director Hany Abu-Assad provides a welcome and much needed interpretation of the desperate nature of modern ‘terrorism' while never attempting to justify the acts themselves. That the film stands alone as a thoughtful, intelligent and absorbing in its own right is almost a bonus.