It was exactly seven years ago when Mohammed Heindi, formerly Egyptian cinema s hottest commodity, transported local cinema from the dark grave of a commercial slump to the safe shores of box office bliss. Ismailia Rayeh Gay (Back and Forth from Ismailia) was no revelation; on the contrary, it was a simple, poorly written rise-to-fame story empowered by the freshness of Heindi s acting skills.
The film established Heindi s comic persona of a detestable cocksure young man who looks more middle-aged than the college graduate he impersonated in his first five films. Nearly all his films revolved around the same trite success story of a young, ordinary and usually incompetent man armored solely with his sheer determination. Heindi succeeded simply because he had no bona fide competitor back then; he was a fresh face toying with the undemanding form of verbal comedy that opened up the gate for talents more gifted than he ever was.
Personally, I ve never warmed to any of Heindi s works and I never found him to be truly funny. Sa eedi Fil Gamaa El-Amrekeia (A Southerner in the American University), the highest grossing Egyptian film in history, was an overrated, blundering picture immersed in melodrama and pigeonholed characters. His subsequent films, which closely adhered to the Rocky formula, weren t worlds away from both Sa eedi and “Ismailia .
Flashes of promising ideas and genuine humor crept in sporadically in Ga’na El-Bian El-Taly (Breaking News) and Fool El-Seen Al-Azeem (The Great Beans of China).
The amount of sappiness and bland jokes his films are bloated with registered as an Egyptian version of the hideous Adam Sandler works. Unlike Sandler, who for some very obscure reason still managed to nab hundreds of millions with every comedic release, (check out this week s American box office); filmgoers steadily grew tired of Heinidi’s stagnant brand of comedy.
He still managed to generate millions via his fan base but he was never able to reach the height of his glory days. Unlike Adel Imam, Heindi s comedy ceased to evolve.
His latest film Andaleeb Al-Dokki (The Dokki Nightingale) is another flop in his waning cinematic legacy.
Andaleeb tells the story of Fawzy, an aspiring delusional singer with no talent. Fawzy s ill-fated career throws him into a web of debts that eventually destroys the small call center, a business his mother invested all her savings in. When she falls ill, Fawzy s mother reveals that he has a filthy rich twin who lives in Dubai. His brother was the fruit of a short marriage to an Arab businessman who decided to leave one of the twins with the mother when she refused to move with him to the Gulf.
Fawzy locates his brother and travels to Dubai, hoping his brother s good fortune would rub off on him. Fawaz, a widowed dim-witted, stereotypical Arab doesn t believe that Fawzy is his brother despite their uncanny physical resemblance. Fawzy befriends his brother s lonely, neglected son and develops a relationship with Jummana, Fawaz s personal secretary whose poor upbringing drives her appetite for money. The film then moves into the customary route of foreign conspiracies engineered by Israel, Heindi’s most regular enemy.
“Andaleeb is essentially one big vehicle to publicize Dubai. With wide shots of the larger-than-life skyscrapers, spacious roads, massive parks and nice-looking villas, the film portrays the richest gulf state as a flawless metropolis where nothing can go wrong.
Wael Ehsan, the director (of “El Limby and the last four Ahmed Helmy blockbusters), fails yet again to work his magic spell on Heindi. They first collaborated on last year’s “Wesh Egram (Tendency for Crime), which was another disappointment.
The man has a knack of producing some sight-gags that aren’t bad. He’s no film auteur, just a journeyman filmmaker given scripts that, in the case of the Heindi films, are so bad even his smartest tricks fail miserably.
The film ultimately looks bland, relying chiefly on the same old one-liners, Heindi’s impotent impersonation of Abdel Halim Hafez accompanied with stale musical numbers and the star’s worn-out take on rich Arab men.
The reason why “Andaleeb reaches a bottomless low is the cheap sentimentality that exploits the viewers’ sympathy for the Palestinian cause and the new-found hatred for Denmark, Heindi’s latest adversary.
Montages of the Palestinian massacres, combined with shots of a devil look-a-like Israeli with a sneer from hell on his face attempting to shake hands with the patriotic Fawzy, who throws an ashtray to smash the Israeli glass flag, is pure crass. Not only is the topic handled simplistically; it’s infuriating to realize than Heindi and co. are using this complex issue, again, to draw some stingy applause.
“Andaleeb Al-Dokki demonstrates how Heindi has lost his appeal. The man fantasizes about being the next Adel Imam by pushing overt politics into his films. Clearly, he doesn’t possess Imam’s intellect, earnestness or skill of conviction. With a sequence that sees the Arabs unite against their “common enemy, as well as a few monologues that act as the obligatory sermon about the necessity of unity and strong familial relationships, the film unravels to appear as nothing more than a slapdash daydream that’s not half as funny as it looked in the trailer.
