{"id":13804,"date":"2026-01-10T18:30:47","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T23:30:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=13804"},"modified":"2026-01-17T20:58:47","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T01:58:47","slug":"i-was-a-stranger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2026\/01\/10\/i-was-a-stranger\/","title":{"rendered":"I Was a Stranger"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I Was a Stranger<\/strong> (2026)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Angel\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 103 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (strong violent content\/bloody images, thematic material, a racial slur)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Brandt Andersen\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Brandt Andersen\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Nick Chuba\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Jonathan Sela\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: January 9, 2026 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Yasmine Al Massri, Yahya Mahayni, Omar Sy, Ziad Bakri, Constantine Markoulakis, Jason Beghe, Ayman Samman, Massa Daoud.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: **<\/p>\n

\u00a0With the current political climate as it pertains to immigration, it\u2019s obvious that the new Angel Studios release I Was a Stranger<\/strong> is intended be divisive. All I felt was indifference.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Angel is clearly hoping to repeat the success of their 2023 surprise hit Sound of Freedom with this heavy-handed drama about the struggle of those trying to leave war-torn hellholes to start a new life in America. I won\u2019t deny I Was a Stranger<\/strong> has a handful of effective moments, but the overall effect is underwhelming. It just doesn\u2019t hit like it should.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Written and directed by Brandt Andersen (making his feature film debut), I Was a Stranger<\/strong> is an expansion of his 2020 short film Refugee. He weaves together five different storylines, each one building on the one that came before it. If anybody\u2019s the main character, it\u2019s Amira (Al Massari, Quantico), a Syrian woman working in a Chicago hospital. A reminder on her phone transports her back to her home country eight years earlier. She\u2019s celebrating her birthday with her family when a bomb destroys their home, leaving only Amira and her 12YO daughter Rasha (Daoud, Bully High) alive. They make the brave decision to flee their country and the civil war reducing it to rubble.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Amira crosses paths with a few people during her danger-fraught journey. People like conflicted soldier Mustafa (Mahayni, The Man Who Sold His Skin), smuggler Marwan (Sy, The Intouchables), poet\/family man Fathi (Bakri, The Translator) and Greek boat captain Stavros (Markoulakis, Siege on Liperti Street). And herein lies the main problem with I Was a Stranger<\/strong>. The shifts in narrative, which happen roughly every 20-25 minutes, impede the emotional momentum. You barely have enough time to get invested in one story before another begins. The effect is noticeably jarring. By the time Andersen ties them all together at the end, it feels more like relief it\u2019s finally over than catharsis.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I Was a Stranger<\/strong> has been sitting on shelf since it premiered (under the title The Stranger\u2019s Case) at the Berlin Film Festival two years ago. Angel picked it up for distribution last year. Okay, so they didn\u2019t actually make the film. No matter, they still include a plea to \u201cpay it forward\u201d during the end credits roll. Again I ask, how much of the money collected ends up in somebody\u2019s pocket? Save it, I\u2019m old enough to be this cynical.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s not that I Was a Stranger<\/strong> is a bad movie. It just didn\u2019t do anything for me. It\u2019s not entirely uninteresting or without emotional content. It kept me somewhat engaged and a couple of scenes made me feel something. In one, a little girl is forced to leave behind her beloved puppy when her family emigrates. I felt bad for the kid and the cute little dog. In another, a young boy is coldly executed for anti-government graffiti. Unfortunately, moments like these are few and far in between.<\/p>\n

\u00a0There\u2019s nothing wrong with the performances in I Was a Stranger<\/strong>. Some of them are actually pretty good. Sy does solid work as a code-switching smuggler; cold and ruthless when it comes to business but warm and loving with his sickly young son at home. It\u2019s believable because he doesn\u2019t slip completely into bad guy tropes. Massari does great work as the mother going through hell protecting her daughter while trying to make a better life for her. It\u2019s a struggle many will understand. Jason Beghe (Chicago PD) shows up as a doctor at the hospital. He isn\u2019t given anything to do and that\u2019s disappointing given the gravitas he brings to his character in his long-running TV series.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I Was a Stranger<\/strong> is reminiscent of Crash with its intersecting stories and characters. I don\u2019t mind movies like that at all when they do it right. The 2005 Best Picture winner did; this one doesn\u2019t. For all its ambition, it feels half-baked not to mention slightly convoluted. I\u2019ll give it points for sincerity though. It was definitely that. It\u2019s too bad it doesn\u2019t cross across like it should. It\u2019s just another case of a film undone by its own sense of self-importance.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I Was a Stranger (2026)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Angel\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 103 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (strong violent content\/bloody images, thematic material, a racial slur)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Brandt Andersen\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Brandt Andersen\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Nick Chuba\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Jonathan Sela\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: January 9, 2026 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Yasmine Al Massri, Yahya Mahayni, Omar Sy, Ziad Bakri, Constantine Markoulakis, Jason Beghe, Ayman Samman, Massa […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13806,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dramas"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/I-Was-a-Stranger-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13804"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13844,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13804\/revisions\/13844"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}