Embodying the old Hollywood joke “I’ve always wanted to direct,” Comedy Central star Jon Stewart took an entire summer off last year to direct a film called “Rosewater” about Newsweek reporter Maziar Bahiri being abducted in Iran. In an early review in The Hollywood Reporter, film critic Todd McCarthy implies it’s a direct-to-video dud.

Only Stewart’s adoring liberal fans make this film worth any notice, he wrote. The atrocities of ISIS make the idea of being held hostage in Tehran lack a sense of compelling urgency and feels like a “sideshow” on the current scene in the Middle East (trailer below):