Jewish Film Festival

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opposite poles of that spectrum, Steel Toes and Checking Out.

In Steel Toes, which opens the festival on Sunday, May 6, Danny Dunkelman, a Jewish court-appointed lawyer, is assigned to defend Mike Downey, a Montreal skinhead accused of a brutal murder. Downey has used his steel-toed leather combat boots, standard skinhead uniform, to kick an Indian man to death, after a supposed slight.

Dunkelman greets his imprisoned client with "I don't like skinheads and neo-Nazis. I'm not sure that makes me the best person to argue your case." Downey shoots back disdainfully, "You're a humanist liberal Jew, so you gotta do your best." And there it all is; both men are forced to confront their received stereotypical notions and see each other as the complex human beings they are. When Downey in a chillingly matter-of-fact tone says to Dunkelman, "In an ideal world, I'd have you eliminated," we must, along with Dunkelman, confront the possibility that despite abhorring Downey's methods, we might feel the same way about him. When in the next breath Downey adds, "In this world I need you more than anyone," we also must contemplate the value of men like Dunkelman in our world. Oscar nominee David Strathairn portrayed another morally courageous character, the 1950s broadcaster Edward R. Murrow, in Good Night and Good Luck, and here he brilliantly conveys Dunkelman's agonizing inner struggles and ambivalence.