Review, Cairo Conspiracy makes spy of fisherman’s son

A boy undercover is at the heart of Cairo Conspiracy’s story about political strings forcing the election of a new Grand Imam.

The elaborate plot begins with the awarding of a scholarship to Adam (Tawfeek Barhom), the son of a village fisherman, to allow him to attend the famous Al-Azhar University in Cairo

Cairo Conspiracy (Walad minn al janna) (M)
In cinemas
★★★★

Tarik Saleh’s The Nile Hilton Incident (2017) was a gripping thriller about police corruption in Egypt and, not surprisingly, it was not appreciated by the authorities in that country who banned Saleh from returning. For Saleh this was probably not such a big deal; he was born in Stockholm to a Swedish mother and an Egyptian father, and Sweden is his home. Nevertheless he is clearly fascinated by the corruption and crime he perceives in his father’s homeland and he returns to the theme with his new film, Cairo Conspiracy, aka Boy from Heaven.

The new film is a controversial drama about government attempts to influence the election of a new Grand Imam though the State and the Muslim Church are supposedly completely independent of one another. The elaborate plot begins with the awarding of a scholarship to Adam (Tawfeek Barhom), the son of a village fisherman, to allow him to attend the famous Al-Azhar University in Cairo where he’ll be a pawn in the hands of security operative Colonel Ibrahim (Fares Fares). The government is concerned because it is known that the Grand Imam is very ill and the authorities are determined that his replacement will be a man who they can control. “The land cannot support two pharaohs,” warns government official General Al Sakran (Mohammad Bakri).

Soon after Adam’s arrival the Grand Imam dies and the pressure is on religious leaders and government agencies alike over his replacement.

Ibrahim already has a spy in the University, a student named Zizo (Mehdi Dehbi). But Zizo is identified and brutally murdered – a crime watched from a balcony above by a horrified Adam. Adam is now Ibrahim’s undercover man; they meet regularly in a café and Adam becomes increasingly involved in the politics of the coming election, especially when he discovers that his boss, Sheikh Durrani (Ramzi Choukair), the leading contender, has a secret he wants to keep hidden.

There’s plenty of suspense here as it becomes clear that the ruthless security boss, Sobhi (Moe Ayoub), will stop at nothing to achieve his desired result.

You could argue that it’s a little unlikely that the security forces should choose such a naive young man as Adam to do their inside work, but once you accept that notion then the film – actually made in Turkey – is a very effective thriller.

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The Inspection (MA15+)
In cinemas
★★★½

“I hate recruits,” bellows a drill sergeant at a bunch of nervous young men who are commencing their Marine Corps training. In British films the formidable sergeant-major is often depicted as a figure of fun (Carry on Sergeant, Private’s Progress) but in America the drill sergeant is no joke; Bokeem Woodbine makes this martinet a man to be feared as young men are bullied, humiliated, insulted and degraded, all in the name of turning raw recruits into marines.

The brutalisation of young men in order to transform them into soldiers who will obey without question has been the subject of some good films over the years including From Here to Eternity (1953), Full Metal Jacket (1987) and Jarhead (2005), but it’s a theme I find singularly unappealing.

Talk about a negative working environment. The Inspection tackles a subject many will find abhorrent, but it proves to be a raw, achingly personal autobiography.

The film is the first feature written and directed by Elegance Bratton, who has previously made documentaries.

And it’s his own story, the story of a gay African American who volunteered to become a Marine recruit.

It opens in 2006 when Ellis French (the excellent Jeremy Pope) – as the Bratton character is called in the film – makes contact with his estranged, bitter mother, Inez (Gabrielle Union giving a powerful performance), a prison officer based in Trenton, New Jersey. Inez is homophobic and deeply religious, so the reunion is a difficult one.

Ellis needs her to give him his birth certificate, an essential requirement for enlistment. Bratton has dedicated the film to his mother, who died in 2020.

Ellis’s motive in enlisting is a determination not to wind up on the streets like many of his contemporaries already have.

Life in boot camp is further complicated by the fact that Ellis is gay – something he tries, without success, to hide.

He is not the only one to be persecuted; a Muslim recruit (Eman Esfandi) also finds Marine training very tough.

The Inspection succeeds in the end because this powerful real-life character study is firmly rooted in reality.

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Masquerade (MA15+)
In cinemas
★★½

Overlong and overly convoluted this new film from the director of the superior La belle epoque (2019) opens with a quote from Somerset Maugham: “The French Riviera is a sunny place for shady people.”

Masquerade certainly sets out to prove the accuracy of that adage. It begins with a scene in which a young couple, Adrien (Pierre Niney) and Margot (Marine Vacth), are in a hotel room overlooking the sea when there’s a knock at the door, a shot is fired, and Margot falls, wounded.

Cut to a courtroom where real estate manager Simon (Francois Cluzet) is on trial for the shooting. In flashback we discover that Adrien, a dissolute character with ambitions to be a writer, becomes the lover of famous actress Maria (Isabelle Adjani), who is considerably older than he is, and moves into her palatial house where a number of valuable paintings are on display.

Adrien meets Margot and it’s lust at first sight, but she proves to be a manipulative schemer. Margot seduces Simon, a married man, while Adrien ingratiates himself with Maria to the point of marrying her.

But nobody in this movie is playing square with anyone else. With its lush settings of France’s overdeveloped Mediterranean coast and its gallery of weak and dishonest characters the film is intriguing only up to a point.

“Is it marriage you’re after?” Margot is asked at one point and her telling reply is simply: “Divorce”.

The film has a cruel core that reaches its peak when poor Maria realises she’s been conned.

A stellar cast gives good performances but Masquerade leaves a rather bitter taste.