Movie review

So I just saw the much talked-about new blockbuster film "El Gezeera," and let me tell you, people...I thought it was horrendous.

Ok where should I begin ya tara, where should I begin...7adi-badi-sidi-m7ammad-el-boghdadi - se'ssa2a's beard it is then!


Ok first of all you will never see a real-life, self respecting se3eedi with se'ssa2as unshaven beard, let alone Mr. Sa22a's signature cleanly cropped at the sides, hourly-machine-trimmed, straight out of the 80s (or somewhere) mockette beard. No siree, this won't happen. (And I will not go to his bling rings.)

Secondly!

Come on, people -Did this woman really look se3eedi to you??:-) Imagine this person wearing the same make-up, flaunting the same soft demeanor you see in this photograph (and wearing maybe a slightly different hairdo?) playing the role of a housewife from a hardened drug baron family...would you buy it?

Thirdly, the dialects - they were clearly flawed; as in obviously inconsistent, and therefore clearly manufactured to the listeners and inauthentic. You can't help but note that the producers of old black and white movies of yore had more meticulously researched their works than the makers of this film.

Fourthly, the attire...

What was that that Hind Sabry was wearing? Those were not se3eedi clothes - you could think Siwan maybe, who knows, but not typical Upper Egyptian dress. And Mr. Sa22a's changing dress sometimes looked more like an Alexandrian fisherman's than that of a powerful se3eedi clansman.

Fifthly, and I must mention the fifthly!...the goody-two-shoes cop! Now this fellow had a good heart; so good that he would on several occasions miraculously find himself intruding inside the drug baron's house, bystanding all the guards you would imagine said drug baron employs. Now Hollywood would usually waste your time explaining to you how cop expertly accomplished this feat - but in our film it just happens, et voila; in one shot you find the man already strolling in drug baron's house...ezzaay?? Makhabershy...wallahu a3lam. Excellent accomplishments from the same man who was shown in an earlier scene lost and confused, spinning in the same spot (yes, without actually running around to explore another spot...) in the assab fields gun-fight scene much like a dog does in play-chasing his own tail...Kat neyyeto safya awi eddadda3da wallahy.

Sixthly, that scene where the undercover security apparatus installed a monitoring camera - and I mean a huuuge 1980s embassy-style not-trying-at-all-to-look-hidden camera - outside the wall of the drug baron's own house to spy on his drug transactions, and the team looking so surpised (and saying darn!) when the baron waves at them that he can see them..Smart Sa22a!

Seventhly, the battle scene near the end where Sa22a and his men charge forward shooting their guns as if they were fighting a middle-ages battle with wooden swords...and this coming from the man who we are told just graduated from special forces' school and is praised by his comrades throughout the film for his rare learning and intelligence! Scene totally uncalled for...

This is not to say that the whole movie was bad...there are clearly some production and directorial strides forward being made, but those being emulative rather than innovative of Western action scenes, for example, and that in my humble opinion is unnecessary and misplaced in the Egyptian context. The customary plot adaptations from Hollywood in Egyptian action flicks are also clearly present in this film; from The Godfather in this case - all inclusive of the weaker brother Fredo who is very originally shot in this adaptation in the person of young Godfather's betraying uncle instead.

Almost forgot: That spooky mokhber hired by Sa22a to spy on his uncle: it was understandable to see him following him as he came out of the police station, but not really to see him following him on foot out of the woods when the uncle was soon shot while and after driving a journey in his car. It looked more like a snap of a phantom in the directorial style of The Passion of the Christ.