Regardless of what you might think of him, Mohammed Hefzy is now widely recognized as one of the hottest new talents in Egyptian cinema. The young scriptwriter s touch has worked box office magic with recent hits such as Tito, Mallaki Iskandariya (Private Alexandria), El Torbini (The Turbo) and other films.
It s not difficult to understand why Hefzy is on high demand by the biggest production companies in the country. His scripts blend strong, accessible commercial dramas with a touch of originality stemming from his ambition to write stories that defy the Egyptian conventions for bankable film recipes.
Despite his earnestness, his scripts have their shortcomings. For one, Hefzy s characters always seem undeveloped. While they do encompass more depth than the characters in your average Egyptian blockbuster, their motivations and pursuits are never explored enough. Thus they come across as shallow and self-absorbed. His dialogue, although fresh in some parts, doesn t succeed in bypassing the cliché trap; his romantic dialogue, in particular, can be excruciatingly painful.
His biggest drawback, though, is the imposing Hollywood influence on his scripts. Hefzy s story can take place anywhere in the world. His sense of Egyptian culture is always inaccurate or absent. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, nevertheless, his failure to correctly depict Egyptian protagonists within their surroundings makes his characters appear unconvincing and their behavior unbelievable.
Hefzy s latest work, 45 Days, seems, on the surface, to have overcome the Hollywood inspiration to create a genuinely original work with a separate world of its own. However, as the movie progresses, it becomes obvious that Hefzy fails yet again to break the American shackles whose stains are apparent in every flaw of the script.
The film opens with quick, trailer-like montage of a young man uttering the words I m sorry to a horse before shooting him. He returns to what appears to be his home, gazing aimlessly while holding a gun and defiantly listening to sirens of the police vehicles pulling in to arrest him.
The young man is Adham (Ahmed El Feshawy), a rich kid who s accused of murdering his parents. The investigative reports can t find any plausible grounds for Adham s crime and so they appoint a psychiatrist (Hesham Selim) to study his case and inspect his mental health for the duration of 45 days.
From this point forward, the film adheres closely to the classic formula of the standard psychological thriller/drama. Through a series of long flashbacks, we learn about Adham s brutal and tumultuous childhood. His father (Ezzat Abu Ouf) is a pilot with serious drinking problems; firm, elegant and malicious with his son. Several scenes show him beating up a young Adham with his belt and how his cruelty progresses from the physical to the emotional as his son grows up.
The father’s attitude with Adham’s sister (Mariana Adam) is the extreme opposite. He doesn t hide his immense affection for her and doesn t hesitate to give her everything he deliberately deprived his son of.
Adham s mother (Ghada Abdel Razek), in stark contrast, is a loving, compassionate woman who stands helpless towards her husband s actions for unknown reasons.
All the characters are hiding secrets that may give clues to their actions and conflicts. By using such a structure that follows the footsteps of a suspense, mystery drama; Hefzy and first-time director Ahmed Yousri pass on the chance to create a really strong and compelling drama in favor of a film that relies heavily on a couple of predictable twist endings – reminiscent of similar current poor Hollywood flicks.
45 Days is a glum, dark film with doomed, forsaken characters. The rationale lurking behind the behavior of Adham s parents which is revealed at the end is not only feeble and not quite persuasive, but also feels rushed. Abou Ouf s rich character is never explored thoroughly and the film’s ending leaves large holes in the plot open, the audience lacking a final sense of closure.
Although both the structure and the ending are the chief reasons why Hefzy s film doesn t work, the movie contains several other problems. Unlike Hefzy s Private Alex, his best work to date, there s nothing fresh about his new film. 45 Days is no different than the hundreds of American dysfunctional family dramas – regardless of the minor thriller context that frames the events of the film. Even the sub-plot involving the psychiatrist and his fractured relationship with his wife is very similar to a sub-plot from Denzel Washington s Antwone Fisher.
Ahmed Yousri s direction depends greatly on flashy advertising techniques that feature plenty of scenes filmed in slow-motion, unjustifiable use of acute angels, and rapidly edited sequences. The film s best moments occur when Yousri smoothly points the camera towards his actors and keeps still.
The performances elevate the film from bad to below-average. Ahmed El Feshawy, in his first serious role, is a revelation as the tormented Adham. El Feshawy, who finally drops his irritating American accent, channels his character s anger, desperation and alienation inwards without attempting to churn any sympathy from the audiences. Abu Ouf, while playing a role that remains somehow monotonous throughout the story, emerges at the end with easily the best, most highly-charged scene of the film. Too bad that this scene is not supported by other storylines that would ve made it more valuable and lucid.
45 Days is a film that aspired to be both a good drama and a stimulating psychological thriller, but ended up failing to become either. With its excellent cast and the initial promising premise, the film had the potential for something far greater than what it turned out to be which is, more or less, a twisted futile take on Shakespeare s Othello
