"Horoob Etirary" Review

“Horoob Etirary” stands the test as a gripping Egyptian action-thriller.

Ahmed Khaled Mousa’s “Horoob Etirary” is one of the best entertainments of the year, a tense, taut and expert action, thriller that becomes something more than that, an allegory about an innocent group of four in a universe prepared to crush them by involving them in a murder case as the killers, through out a series of exciting events that includes many scenes of action, the four characters try to solve the case and to know how and why are they involved in it.

Mousa, the director, has come up through a series of superior action productions. His gift was apparent in his earlier features “Baad El Bedaya" and "Al Mizan”. Using atmospheric arial shots of the building where the murder took place and great music which transcends the movie genre and shows an ability to marry action and artistry that deserves comparison with great directors.

In a film that never relaxes its tension, even for an instant

the four characters are pursued in a manhunt directed by deputy Police officer “Fathy Abdel Wahab" and deputy Police officer “Ahmad Al-Awadi”.

With the charm of a hangman promising to make things as comfortable as possible “Ahmad Al-Awadi” made his role more complex than at first it seems. As the chase continues, he gradually becomes convinced of the innocence of his prey, but this conviction is wisely never spelled out in dialogue, and remains ambivalent, expressed in the look in his eyes, or his pauses between words.

The intense of the film grew gradually by keeping “Fathy Abdel Wahab”  only a few steps ahead of his pursuers which is a dangerous strategy, that could lead to laughable close calls and near-misses, but Mousa tells the story of the pursuit so clearly on the tactical level that we can always understand why “Fathy Abdel Wahab” was so far ahead, and no further. As always, Mousa used locations not simply as the place where action occurs, but as part of the reason for the action. Considering his virtuoso opening sequence which leads to a series of important scenes and finally to a spectacular movie buildup, where the four characters are introduced to the audience.

It was not a coincidence that “Fathy Abdel Wahab”, has much more dialogue than “Ahmad Al-Awadi”, in the screenplay by “Mohamed Sayed Bashir" it always serves an intelligent purpose which is you never have the feeling the characters are saying things simply to give us information; instead, a little at a time, they reveal the way they are thinking. on the other hand “Ahmad Al-Awadi” is surrounded by a corrupt police officer and a sister which gets him into trouble by helping her lover who is one of the four accused in the murder which increase the importance of the case to “Ahmad Al-Awadi”. 

For once the movie sounds like a drama queen movie, but although the film is relentlessly manipulative, it plays like real events. Nothing can really be believed in retrospect, but “Mousa" and his actors ground all the action and dialogue in reality, so we don't consider the artifice while it's happening.

As for “Ahmed El Sakka” once again he is the great modern movie everyman: dogged, determined, brave and not very demonstrative. As an actor, nothing he does seems merely for show, and in the face of this melodramatic material he deliberately plays down, lays low, gets on with business instead of trying to exploit the drama in meaningless acting flourishes.

The Movie idea has a certain allure to it: An alpha class “Ahmed El Sakka” trapped inside a high-rise case with a group of Beta class fugitives. He is all that stands between them going wild and them getting out of their problem. Giving him the leader brains and a personality “El Sakka" guides them and starts gathering information and searching for clues that may help them or lead to the real killer.

One amazing aspect of “Ahmed El Sakka” is the extreme exploits he does, like him climbing the building on a dizzying height while being filmed and his horse leap over the police cars. He also succeeds in making his character deeply sympathetic from the film's opening frames. This actor's wary intelligence is no surprise, he works furiously to turn his character's terror into something starkly physical.

There’s no doubt he’s charismatic in this film with a hammy needed spots and the overaggressive one-liners, which totally works and make you by the end of the movie rooting for him, which is not strange as he shows us the most depth, because he grows toward the end of the film and becomes as much of a detective of the conspiracy, as Fathy Abdel Wahab" and “Ahmad Al-Awadi” themselves, “Ahmed El Sakka” performance transform this otherwise orthodox cat-and-mouse movie into a gripping experience.

“Amir Karara" playing the meanest, baddest narcotics thug, a dude who cruises the mean streets and who is living on a rooftop with nothing just pigeons surrounding him, extracting tribute and accumulating graft like a medieval warlord shaking down his serfs with a pose that any job must be done his way. During his scenes here are times when you're distracted from the action on the screen by the need to trace back through the plot and try to piece together how events could possibly have turned out this way. But “Mohamed Sayed Bashir“ screenplay is ingenious in the way it plants clues and pays them off in unexpected ways, so that “Horoob Etirary” makes as much sense as movies like this usually can. It might have been better if it had intruded more in to Karara's life.

Showing “Amir Karara" loving and valuing the wife and children life so much that he refuses dishonest things, like embezzling money, even to benefit his family he delivers an ultimate message through his role which is a powerful one: you may live as if the ends justify the means, but in the end, justice prevails, thats why more than once, honesty and strong ethics gets him closer to “Ghada Adel”.

“Horoob Etirary” shows an oppressive view of our time with bold visual strokes and a great operatic music scores, although thrillers are a much-debased genre these days, depending on special effects and formula for much of their content. "Horoob Etirary" has the standards of an earlier, more classic time, when acting, character and dialogue were meant to stand on their own, and the characters continued to change and develop right up until the last frame. Here is one of the year's best films.

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