How much suspension of disbelief is an audience expected to endure to appreciate any movie? This one had too many and most of them were jaw-droppers.

In Babel, we have a modern, well-to-do American couple who goes on a trip with no backup for the care of their kids other than the nanny/maid, Amelia. That she has to scrounge for someone to watch the kids for a day so she can go to her son’s wedding suggests that the kids have no friends, never had play dates or sleepovers, that the parents had no friends among other parents in the neighborhood or in the school. According to the film, this family lives in a vacuum. It’s San Diego ferGawdsakes, not the boonies? Are they hermits? And if they were, would any parent leave their own kids in such a situation, especially after having recently lost a baby to SIDS? And go to Morroco, of all places? Screenwriter behaving stupidly.

Further, when Cate asks Brad why are they in Morocco, Brad responds, “to be alone.” Excuse me – he picks Morocco to be alone? Not exactly the destination that would enter the mind of most responsible couples. With my kids halfway across the world being cared for by an illegal who can’t drive, who doesn’t have resources to help her in an emergency, I decide to be alone with my still-grieving wife in the hills of effin’ MOROCCO? And without a cell phone? And doesn’t he know his wife well enough to realize that she would hate the place? Which she does. I thought I’d fall out of my chair laughing when she asks the waiter in that Moroccan roadside cafe if they had anything “without any fat.”

The phony isolation of this family and the choice of Morocco and the subsequent artificial trope of Amelia having to bring the kids to Mexico are all fabrications built on the unbelievable and stupid behavior of many of the characters. The entire film is built upon characters behaving stupidly. The movie “The Stupids” wasn’t as stupid as these characters.

Let’s go to the Moroccan father. He seems to be a very competent fellow, even by the standards of the hill country of Morocco. He has goats, sells skins, brings food to the table. He buys a rifle to kill jackals who prey on his goats. Does not even a father in this third world country know enough not to send his kids off to the hills with a rifle, with no indication of how to shoot or aim the damned thing? Shouldn’t it have occurred to someone, especially the hunting guide who sold him the rifle, that it would be a good idea to practice shooting the damned thing? Did they think the ability to hit a jackal would come miraculously? Even after they all demonstrated their incompetence at firing it? Father behaving stupidly.

I would not have a problem with this — I’d suspend disbelief — if this monumental oversight wasn’t the catalyst of the entire movie. It was a manipulative oversight the writer made, or didn’t make, to justify his intent.

Then, when they see the police coming after them, they run. Okay! Makes sense. They make it to the protection of some rocks. But if the young kid knows enough raise his hand in surrender (after smashing the rifle in sight of the firing police and not being shot in this major barrage), why couldn’t it have occurred to any of them to do it once they got behind the rocks? Third world or not, farmers or not, this gesture is universal. But they choose to shoot back. Why? So the other kid can die and the the director can manipulate us into wringing our hands over the tragedy of our lack of communication, Babel — get it? Oy! Yes, we do. Screenwriter making characters behave stupidly just to advance his story.

Stupid number three. Amelia the nanny accepts without question her nephew’s assurance that he’s okay to drive after a hard day and night drinking at her son’s wedding. Even her son asks him two or three times, but she doesn’t? She is the self-proclaimed protector of these two kids, a smart, decent, competent, loving woman, and she’s willing to travel late at night to San Diego, an illegal yet, with a driving nephew who’s been drinking all day at a party? She’s putting these kids at risk without putting up the slimmest fight. This is a smart, conscientious woman who is suddenly behaving stupidly.

The Japanese father isn’t portrayed as a driven businessman who ignores his family for his work. Maybe he is, but when we meet him, he is painted as a concerned, caring, grieving guy. If so, why hasn’t he noticed that his daughter is on the edge of an emotional cliff? He stays out all hours on business seemingly without a clue as to what his daughter does, is doing, feeling. He doesn’t try to get her emotional help. He doesn’t try to spend more time with her. Father behaving stupidly.

I will suspend my disbelief here because of a lack of knowledge of Japanese culture and customs, but given what I think are deliberately drawn bad characters, it’s hard to forgive this one. The writer and director have stacked the story deck in the clumsiest fashion and renders the movie and story preposterous. Director behaving stupidly.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.