Someone once told me how cool it must be to make a living out of watching films and writing about them. His statement is an erroneous, common misconception. The fact of the matter is for every “El Gezira (The Island) or “There Will Be Blood, there are 10 “Hassan Tayara and “Jumper movies that make the most resilient of critics weep over the precious lost hours.
Early this week, while watching Egyptian cinema’s latest attempt at shaking up the dead spring season and producing a bona fide thriller in the shape of “No’tet Regoo (Point of Return), I couldn’t help but envy American critic Jim Emerson who no longer felt obliged to watch or write about the mainstream rubbish released each week.
“Point may not be as bad as recent action thrillers like “Sharea 18 (Street no. 18), “Kalashnikov or “Khareg An Al Qanoun (The Outlaw), but it s still a mediocre, inconsequential picture with average acting, uninspired direction and an ending which, despite its good twist, doesn’t make any sense.
The film opens with a lethal car accident that leaves successful businessman Hashem El Gohary (Sherif Mounir) with memory loss and a badly deformed face. His wife, Laila (Nour), miraculously survives without any injuries.
Hashem goes under the knife to fix his face and in one glorious moment, his face is unveiled from piles of bandages without a single scar and a neatly trimmed hairline.
With no recollection of his past life, Hashem searches for clues that might lead him to solve the mysteries of the shady circumstances surrounding his accident.
While scrambling items in his desk, he stumbles upon a photo of his wife with another man. Minutes later, his best friend Adel (Mohamed Soliman) refutes his suspicions of Laila’s infidelity, asserting that it was him, as a matter of fact, who was never faithful to his devoted wife. On the other hand, his close friend Seham (Heidi Karam) warns him of the danger his wife is capable of inflicting.
Further coincidences and discoveries lead him to Hamam (Mohamed Shouman), a former police officer Hashem employed shortly before his accident to monitor his wife. Hamam, who currently owns a carwash service, says that his investigations found that Laila was having an affair with an artist called Selim.
Laila doesn’t deny Hamam’s allegations, justifying her rather platonic relationship with Selim as a natural result of Hashem’s neglect and wanton philandering. Laila, who was planning to ask Hashem for a divorce on the day of the accident, confirms that she ended her relationship with Selim even before the ill-fated crash.
The pendulum goes back and forth between the two as truths begin to unfold amid an escalating series of events.
Thriller is a genre few Egyptian filmmakers have succeeded in. Only legendary filmmaker Kamal El Sheikh stood out among Egyptian and Arab filmmakers with his astonishing run of great, diverse thrillers such as “El Manzel Rakam Talatashar (House No. 13), “Haya Aw Mout (Life or Death), and his masterpiece “El Laila El Akhira (The Last Night).
The influence of Hitchcock was palpable in El Sheikh’s first few works. Yet his films always displayed a distinctive visual and narrative quality that didn’t stray far from Egyptian reality. The pace of his movies was measured and singular. Like Hitchcock, he reinvented the genre, using its basic, primary tools and spirit to tell engaging, enduring stories.
The same can’t be said of director Hatem Farid’s new film. “Point uses every Hollywood cliché in the book, choosing to closely adhere to the safe conventions of the genre.
For example, Farid overdoes Khaled Hamad’s ultra-suspenseful score and sound effects to induce shock and anticipation over laughable sequences.
Hashem, accompanied by his sidekick Hamam, trails an unknown driver at a speed of 20 km an hour. How, with such speed, could the other vehicle escape them is the real mystery at the center of the film, which proudly boasts the slowest car chase in history.
It’s these conventions that eventually ruin a story that, to be fair, isn’t that bad. Screenwriters Ibrahim Hamed and Mahmoud Hamed instill their story with several twists and turns that could have made a superior script with a better context and a more capable director. The concept of identity that Farid presents in a rush at the end of the film – an attempt possibly to give his film more depth – might have transformed it completely had he explored this theme further and earlier.
The story, and not Farid’s flat direction, is what keeps the wary viewer’s attention on the screen up to the surprising ending, upon which the film is structured. Honestly, the ending caught me off guard, and I’d be lying if I claim that I saw it coming. But unlike films with similar twist endings like “Les Diaboliques, “The Usual Suspects or even “Hidden, the finale of “Point breaches logic.
The urge to create a surprising ending has clearly become an obsession for the post- “Sixth Sense filmmakers. While the rest of the world had moved on many years ago, Egyptian filmmakers are still fixated on this formula. And the ending could indeed have saved the film. However, it’s difficult to buy an ending inconsistent with the rest of the story’s events, and viewers ultimately feel cheated with an explanation that insults their intelligence.
To make matters worse, all the performances are average, to say the least. Sherif Mounir, a talented actor with bad career choices, gives an okay performance, playing a character lacking in depth. In another typical performance of hers, Nour plays the starry-eyed innocent wife before accidentally giving away her character’s secrets by suddenly appearing sly and vicious. Mohamed Shouman is the standout, injecting his rather flat character with wit and subtlety.
As horrific as this may sound, and for the first time ever, I actually started to long for the absurd, silly Egyptian summer comedies towards the end of “Point of Return. At least there are small, entertaining gratifications in those disjointed jokes.
Besides, Egyptians, I must admit, have a long tradition of crafting comedies. Or maybe the movie has left me too desperate and deluded?
The one thing I’m certain of is that Egyptian filmmakers must stop mimicking mediocre Hollywood archetypes, find their own voice and look for inspiration elsewhere. A better scenario, of course, would be to just stop making films and spare the helpless movie-going public the agony.
The current streak of dreadful Egyptian offerings is finally coming to an end, temporarily, with the pending release of Youssri Nasrallah’s long-awaited fourth feature “Geninent El Asmak (The Aquarium) next week; a film with zero commercial potential that has equally intrigued and frustrated me ever since I watched it at the premiere last Sunday.
