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Zero (2012)
A revealing Noir
A Moroccan noir by Noureddine Lakhmari it tells the story of a crooked cop nicknamed zro since that's how much he accomplished in life living in the slummy shadows of Casablanca ,he gets abused by everyone from his supperior Zeriouali a corrupt police captain to his father an ex cop living in the past who survives mentally by smoking kif .
The film starts with him cleaning a wall a metaphor of him trying to clean the streets of child trafficking .
The camera work also captures Zero's pessimistic view of the world and his hate for the villain Zerouali.
The performances are mediocre but some arespectacular such as that of Dadas
Star 80 (1983)
A tragic 80s noir
The oldest standard wedding vows can be traced back to the book of common prayers,in which it is said "till death do us apart" since divorce was prohibited this is the case for this film made by the artistic Bob Fosse in which he details the real life murder suicide of Paul Snider a small time hustler pimp who comes out as a narcisstic hateful psychopath but later we find out the he is a devastated self destructed failure so we feel some sympathy for him backed by a brilliant performance by Eric Roberts.
On the other hand we have Dorothy which falls for Paul and gets exploited by him she is gentle ,kindand gentle almost angel like.
At the end of the film we can't blame Paul for the tragic ending but the exotic industry which exploited both of them and caused their demise .
Al-ayyam al-tawila (1980)
Irony at it's finest
One of the first things that Saddam accomplished when becoming president was building a cult of personality of himself something he couldn't have completed without this film .
The film follows a young Saddam as his contracted by the Baath to assassinate dictator Abdelkarim Qassim in 1959 ,he ultimately fails and has to escape the wrath of the secret police chasing him.
Althought the film has bad quality it is funny with a few gags.
At the beginnig the follow up of the assassination is quite enthousiastic but it gets really boring after a while making it unwatchable.
The actors were generally awfull the lead being non other than Saddam son in law a military officer with no acting experience.
Ilove the way they portrayed Qassim regime as brutal and oppressive something Saddam was infamous for.
The most brilliant sequence is when Saddam have this nightmare about getting hanged for the assassination.
The Valachi Papers (1972)
"What I'm telling you , this is my doom"
The Valachi Papers is a 1972 film by Terrence Young a biographical docudrama about Joe Valachi the first mobster to aknowledge the existence of LCN a secret criminal society that controls most of New york criminal underworld and how he rose from a burglar to a Narco trafficker .
The film also gives a historic account of LCN by focusing on their leaders and major events that largely putted it on the spotlight .
As the story progress and gets darker and darker the viewer seems to be convinced little by little that Valachi got trapped into this brotherhood of evil which got him nothing but misery and ensured his stay on the wrong path .
The only complain I have is The way more important character from the book were written off and the low budget which turned the movie goofy.
Fi Baytena Ragul (1961)
A political thriller
An Egyptian movie made in the last years of the Nahda a cultural renaissance in which the Arabs culturally prospered with amazing intellectuals,famous singers and the production of hundreds of films annually .
The film starts with a prison escapee who has a death sentence hanging on his neck for murdering the corrupt prime minister who is a front for British colonialism .He seeks refuge in a friend's house in Cairo during the holy month of Ramadan to plan his escape from the country.
The film was made in the height of Arab nationalism a theme shaped by Gamal Abdelnasser the president of Egypt at the time and Shareef 's character symbolises it,with his rebellious ,anarchist , whistleblowing traits .
The love story is also solid but slowed the plot and didn't serve much of a goal except to show Ibrahim's will to sacrifice everything for his country.
The film does a great job portraying political mouvements at the time in the Arab world these oppressed parties greatly suffered under totalitarian dictatorships.
Ironically the film's writer said in an interview that the story was inspired by true events in which he friend of his hide althought it is unclear in which regime this occured it is unlikely to have been Nasser's since the movie was going to be banned .
However Nasser used this film as propaganda to push Arab nationalism to other Arab countries ruled by military dictators and corrupt monarchist during the Arab cold war.
Best Quote: The people sentenced him to death and I passed the judgement
Out of Sight (1998)
A tragic comedy
A Soderbergh's masterpiece starring an all stars cast ranging from George Clooney to Dennis Farina and even Samuel L Jackson . This movie is set in Miami it centres around Mick Folley an infamous bank robber who gets arrested and sentenced to a long stretch in prison so he tries to figure out a way to escape and plan a last heist before retiring and along the way he falls in love with a fed portrayed by Jennifer Lopez . The first unique thing about this film is how they mixed different genres from love to crime and also comedy Soderbergh uses this fantastic color change to indicate the setting to the viewer since it does contain lots of flashbacks.
The comedy in this movie is just genius it has this dark vibe and these larger than life characters while maintaining realism to an extent .
Some scenes are powerful like the date scene which reminds us of the coffee scene in Heat.
However this film concentrated too much on the loving instead of the characters that never got their full potentiels .