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Starring: Mohamed Saad, Ahmed Helmy, Ghada Adel
Directed by: Magdi El-Hawari
The cairolive.com rating: 5.5 (out of 10)
To see photos from the star-studded premier click here.
Producer Magdi El-Hawari takes his first stab at directing with 55 Isaaf, the new comedy co-starring Harwai's wife Ghada Adel, and Mohamed Saad and Ahmed Helmy. It's a buddy movie and a caper comedy all at once, that relies on a fever pitch of activity and sustained amount of noise for its momentum.
55 Isaaf is hard to describe. It is a movie, but it's also an anti-movie. There is plenty of philosophy being bandied about, but the venue is too noisy to really take anything in.
For instance, Sayed and Mar'i's constant bickering, which is quite obviously meant as a metaphor for a chronic workplace problem in Egypt. Infighting and lack of teamwork. These two guys work an ambulance, and all they do is argue with each other over who is more important, who gets to do this, etc. It is a typical representation of some of the petty competitive atmospherics of the Egyptian workplace. As ambulance drivers they can't really afford to mess up, but they do, time after time.
But that's alright, because the institution they work for supports compromising positions. A hospital that spruces itself up only when the Minister visits, and where Dr Wafaa, played by Ghada Adel, the object of Sayed and Mar'i 's unending adulation, has been working on a project to improve the ambulance and emergency services for three years, only to have it shelved by the hospital director.
.So you've got all these interesting themes going on, but the comic format is not really taking them, or the film anywhere, and this goes on for a while. An impromptu plot finally makes its way into the film nearly half way through, when our two heroes end up saving the minister, whom they don't even recognize, and in the process getting tangled up with gangs and the police.
About halfway into the film I finally got it. This is a cartoon.
It's the coffee-shop scene that did it for me. Sayed and Mar'i, played respectively by Ahmed Helmy and Mohamed Saad, have gotten themselves into a jam, and are being chased by the police. They go into a coffeeshop to make a call. Everyone's watching a soccer match on TV, which is suddenly interrupted by a news bulletin urging people to report any sightings of Sayed and Mar'i to the police. Their pictures are shown on TV as they watch with the rest of the crowd. "The two suspects are thought to be mentally unstable," the announcer says. With nearly everyone in the coffee-shop having caught on that the two guys are right there, the LE10,000 reward dancing in their minds, Sayed and Mar'i realize their only way out is to act so mentally unstable that everyone will believe they are really crazy and leave them alone. Unbelievably, their plan works, the funny faces and silly noises driving everyone out of the coffee-shop in a millisecond.
We're talking suspension of disbelief. Big time. Does it work? That depends on what age you're willing to be. 55 Isaaf is a romp. A comedy adventure. From the blue-hued, computer-enhanced modern opening credits to the premier invitation, which was in a syringe, the film is trying to say, this is the dawn of something new.
And what would that something new be? A mish-mash, clearly. Perhaps the answer lies in the two passable musical sequences where Sayed and Mari'i do a rap highly reminiscent of Thulathi Adwaa Al-Masrah. That trio of comedians, Samir Ghanem, George Sidhom and Tayeb El-Deif, starred in many films in the 60s much like this one -- satirical and cool, but in the end flimsy and forgettable.
As long as the box office says yes, this most modern of films harks back to a principle as old as show business. If it works, roll with it. So look out for next year's 66 Matafi (Firetruck 66). And that's not a joke.
Showing at:
Hilton Ramsis, Diana, Cosmos, Karim, Normandy, Salam, Heliopolis, Serag, Wonderland
To see photos from the star-studded premier click here.
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