‘Naz & Maalik’ is a charming look at the intersection between homophobia and Islamophobia

While it might have been a more potent dramatic exercise as a short film, 2015’s “Naz and Maalik,” the feature directorial debut from documentarian Jay Dockendorf, milks much mileage from its central conceit — that to a nosy FBI agent, two young Muslim men ducking into an empty alleyway to steal a secret kiss look a lot like terrorists.

The titular characters, Naz (Kerwin Johnson Jr.) and Maalik (Curtiss Cook Jr.) are initially presented as platonic best friends, just guys being dudes. They wander around Brooklyn employing a variety of side hustles, whether it be re-selling lottery tickets or hawking perfume oil in tiny vials. But there’s a case being built that there’s something else between them. 

Well, two cases. 

In the film’s opening scene, Naz’s younger sister Cala (Ashleigh Awusie) finds a used condom wrapped in tissue paper in the bathroom trash bin, immediately knowing that her brother has been engaging in haram wickedness. She uses this to blackmail him for $25, so she won’t tell their parents. But the way Naz dodges her questions about who he’s having sex with, it’s clear he’s hiding more from her than she knows. 

At the same time, FBI agent Sarah Mickell (Annie Grier) is convinced these youths are up to something. She’s cooperating with an undercover cop who attempts to sell Naz and Maalik a gun. But when Maalik plays along with the sale as a joke, the officer thinks they might be extremists planning something big. Mickell, with nothing better to do, follows the guys around the way we are as the audience, but only seeing glimpses of their dodgy behavior. Add that to some gnarly confirmation bias, and she becomes obsessed with catching them in the act.

Tellingly, both of these threads culminate in a kiss. The first is when we finally see the pair indulge in the level of carnal contact that the two leads’ palpable chemistry has been teasing throughout. It’s a physical, primal kind of endeavor, one the FBI agent doesn’t see, just two Black men with their heads on a swivel ducking and darting around the Brooklyn streets. The other kiss, more tender and serene on a train, Cala witnesses from another passing car, doomed with the knowledge that her brother isn’t just sexually active, but gay. 

The aftermath of both these revelations proves to be a bit janky, as Dockendorf’s script struggles in the third act. Blending the lived-in, accurately observed slice-of-life vibe with the absurdist, darkly comic concept of being under federal investigation for being in the closet requires delicate storytelling. In this, Dockendorf’s reach exceeds his grasp, making “Naz & Maalik” one of many sub-90-minute independent films that fail to satisfy due to their incomplete, ill-thought-out endings. He is not the first debut filmmaker to have ideas beyond his current skill level and he will not be the last. 

But the reason the film works so well despite its weak third act is right there in the title. The two leads are absolutely magical together. When the film is at its most narratively blank, it is little more than watching Johnson Jr. and Cook Jr. riffing with one another, having the kind of navel-gazing conversations one might expect from a movie like “Before Sunrise.” There’s an ease and comfort between the two that is as adorable as it is freeing to behold. However, the conflict comes from observing them in the first place. 

The two men are constantly walking around together in broad daylight. Still, every time Maalik, the more forward of the two, exhibits any casual intimacy, Naz’s inherent fear frames the tenderness as if under a microscope. The film expresses some of the more interesting perspectives on the surveillance state, where the two main characters are fighting a war on two fronts — having to hide their homosexuality from their friends and family because of their faith and having to obfuscate their faith from the rest of the world that sees them as ontologically evil for the God they pray to.

There’s a scene early on where Naz and Maalik visit a mosque, and an imam leads his prayer by welcoming the NYPD and the FBI, assuming that at least one of those gathered must be there in an undercover capacity. But he sees it as an opportunity for those mystery interlopers to see up close what a beautiful and peaceful faith Islam can be. By that same token, “Naz and Maalik,” in its depiction of MLM romance, offers a window into Black queerness that ought to normalize it for anyone who may, for whatever ungodly reason, still have some issue with it in 2025, much less when the film was released a decade ago.

Alas, it is also a picture that struggles to wrestle with being in the middle of an elaborate, oppressive Venn diagram, getting it from three sides for the color of your skin, who you love, and how you worship, often each direction being contradictory in its animus. But “Naz and Maalik” is worth a watch, if only to spend some time with its two protagonists, who you will fall for.

“Naz & Maalik” is currently streaming on Prime Video, but is also available to rent for free on Kanopy using your local library card.