A meditative study of struggle and loneliness, following a Pakistani man who schleps his food cart (in a most Sisyphus-like manner) through the streets of New York in the wee hours every morning and tries to scratch out enough money to survive and hopefully see his son once in a while. The casual pace, restrained performances and attention to detail are naturally reminiscent of Bresson, and by extension, the Dardennes. Specifically, it has much in common with MOUCHETTE and ROSETTA. However, it doesn't have the emotional resonance of those films. Somehow the miseries piled upon Ahmed feel a bit more contrived. He's not just living in a harsh world, he seems to have bad luck thrust upon him. Still, it's a thoughtful film with a relatable lead performance by Razvi. I also liked Leticia Dolera, the Spanish newsstand girl. The other actors are a mixed bag, with Charles Daniel Sandoval coming off as particularly poor. Even if this film didn't quite satisfy me, it did leave me curious about Bahrani's later work.

Man push cart is a movie of pain and realism. People hardly watch such movies now a days and find them boring because they are sick of their real life miseries and always looking for an escape in commercial and fantasy cinema. Here in this movie you will not see any of it but only your hard facts of life in a real type movie. This is even a very different genre in movies in my personal opinion and why is that? There is no such plot in the movie. It's a naked glance on the life of our 'hero' Ahmad in this portrayal. Anyone going to watch this movie should not expect a plot here but a true slap on our cruel world of the poor. A look on poor. This movie will hold you as long as its running and you can guess that by the reviews of the people here who even grade this movie bellow or equal to 3 and didn't liked it but still made it till the end. So it's a catchy movie which will keeps you on the seat till the end with a lot of curiosity that what will happen to Ahmad. There's pain in this movie and a lot of it. While watching this drama I really felt bad for the guy. He was taking a whole world of pain, agony, hopelessness, suffering, in his soul and you will definitely feel it while watching. And this makes it a beauty to watch and a 'job done'.This movie could have been much better as mentioned by few reviewers here. Yeah few things would have been great, if added. The first thing, the music! As it's a movie of a singer who's fighting the hard facts of life and at times fall in the memories of his glorious past as a singer so more good music should have been added to the scenes (though the sound track used in the movie is amazingly catchy and honestly as much sad as our hero in the movie is) but still a little glance on his past life as a singer would worked. But as we believe its not a commercial movie but just a portrayal of a character in his current situation so that might be the reason. The second thing 'to do' should have been the ending of the movie. Even if it's a movie of realism there should be a spoken message for the audience as not many of the viewers will understand such endings where you leave the viewer with a loads of pain and misery that what happened to our guy? Artistically it's a perfect ending as it gives you an intellectual perspective but as I said that gotta be for the limited class and not for the whole audience. Over all it's a type of a movie that if you don't like you would just call it a trash but if you like it then you would love it. I loved it!

I watched this debut film of Ramin Bahrani at the 33rd Cleveland International Film Festival. It's a very minimal approach to film-making. There is good composition of the many pre-dawn scenes of Ahmad pushing his cart to its location in mid-town Manhattan. The bleak scenery of dark, low-lit streets, garbage trucks, buses and the constant noise of the city mirror Ahmad's internal landscape. We get some small pieces of his story, but it's very incomplete. We don't know why he doesn't try to regain the success he had in his home country, nor why he sabotages efforts by others to help him. How does the girl fit in? My expectation for a movie still remains that I need to be told a story, care about the characters or be wowed by technique. This was like reading the middle four chapters of a depressing book. I have friends who loved this movie because it lacked those elements which I find essential in film. For me, the movie could have been a twelve-minute short, repeated as many times as you find personally satisfying. I did very much enjoy Bahrani's 3rd film, "Goodbye Solo", where the story is still minimal but the characters are extremely well developed. It's worth watching "Man Push Cart" just to see how well Bahrani's core views are being honed in later movies.

There really aren't enough films made about the modern experience of immigrants in America. There's a huge vein to be mined there. Man Push Cart is a step in the right direction. This film follows a Pakistani immigrant in New York City who sells drinks and donuts from a push cart. He was a pop star in his native country, but is now reduced to nothing. It's a simple story, entertaining and moderately involving, told decently enough. Unfortunately, when you step back and look at it, it's all pretty vapid. Director Bahrani clearly aims for neorealism, even echoing The Bicycle Thieves at points, but the neorealist classics aren't nearly as simplistic as a lot of people tend to think. Here, the characters are two-dimensional, the situation is pretty shallow, and the distantly foreshadowed climactic event feels like a cheap ploy. I'd hardly call it a bad film, but I think much more could have been done with the subject.