This is a new golden age for the Israeli genre, \u201cSeretai Bourekas,\u201d comedies with a lot of shtick and slapstick. The latest example is Checkout, a feature-film version of the sitcom of the same title, known in Hebrew as Kupa Rashit, which just opened in theaters across Israel.<\/p>\n
Checkout, which runs in Israel on KAN 11 and is also available on Netflix<\/a>, is one of Israel\u2019s most popular series.<\/p>\n The movie has already sold a quarter of a million tickets in its first few days (including on Israeli Cinema Day<\/a> on June 17), a notable accomplishment when most Israeli films don\u2019t reach 100,000 viewers.<\/p>\n If you want to see Checkout, you may want to buy tickets in advance, because some showings are selling out.<\/p>\n When I saw the movie last week on Israeli Cinema Day, the audience was the most engaged and attentive I can recall, clapping and cheering, offering words of advice, and calling insults and encouragement to the characters.<\/p>\n The film follows the stories of staff and customers at a fictional supermarket\u00a0<\/p>\n They obviously knew and loved the series and wanted to see more of it.<\/p>\n The movie version plays like a longer-than-usual episode, just as they had hoped for. Checkout tells stories of the staff and customers of the Yavne branch of the fictional Shefa Issachar supermarket<\/a> chain, often in a mockumentary format.<\/p>\n One of the main characters is Shira (Noa Koler), the relentlessly positive assistant manager who has been reading Steve Jobs\u2019 autobiography for years and whose attitude drives the more demoralized employees crazy.<\/p>\n Other key characters include the extraordinarily vain and self-centered cashier Kochava (Keren Mor), Avichai (Yigal Adika), the bossy manager, Amnon Titinski (Dov Navon), the fussy customer whose life revolves around trying to get discounts at the store, and Ramzi (Amir Shurush), an Israeli Arab assistant who sees life through the same rose-colored glasses as Shira.<\/p>\n Nissim (Yaniv Swissa), a religiously observant butcher; Anatoly (Daniel Styopin), Nissim\u2019s buddy, whose wife\u2019s endless pregnancy is one of the movie\u2019s running jokes; Naomi (Maya Landsman), a tough warehouse worker; and several others lend strong support in prominent parts as well.<\/p>\n