Captin Abu Raed
I’ve never left a theatre with a decision to come back and watch it again and I never reviewed a film too.
If you are Ammani or more specifically if you are Jabal Ammanie then you will definitely feel connected to this film. If the smell of Jabal Amman & Down town means something to you then you will feel you are one of the crew just as if you are in an out of body experience watching friends and neighbours.
Again I’m not a film reviewer, so maybe you should check 360east & Black Iris reviews.
Captain overrated
After almost two years of endless hype, the expectations were set way too high, and it was impossible to match the hype even if one ended up making the Arabic hybrid-version of The Shawshank Redemption and Trainspotting
Add to this that I am negative human being by nature, and that cinema taste is a highly subjective matter and here are my brief thoughts:
The plot had no flow what so ever and was all over the place. The domestic violence thingie takes center stage late in the movie and overpowers everything. The narration gets a little boring especially after the 1:20 mark. Some scenes like the “hunchback of Notre Dame smashing your head with a rock thingie” was absolutely unnecessary, and just like many other scenes it felt like a filler.
The ending was very irrational with hopes of attracting sympathy; after all who tries to have a life-changing heartily conversation with a drunkard at dawn right after his wife and kids are stolen away …Abu Raed was asking for it. You don’t kidnap the man’s wife and kids and ask him to react rationally, especially when he is drunk. Murad growing up to be a pilot was seen coming faster than the “You’ve got Mail” ending.
The supporting characters although funny at times were shallow and had minimal contribution to the plot. The lead female character disappears for a good 30 minutes in the middle of the movie.
While the movie was light on the clichés of Jordanian drama – (it did have its “shoo bitgool” moments like: “But he is beating you up and the kids too!!” but in general it avoided them) but of course not without making up for it through the clichés of American drama. Maybe a justifiable trade for a startup director who is trying to break away from Arab drama clichés. On many occasions it felt like the script was written in English and translated to Arabic. For example when Abu Raed hand Murad the pilot hat the line “It’s ok” worked much better for me than “ma3laish”.
Camera
There were some great shots and camera angles in the movie. Unfortunately they were ruined by overemphasis. The director is so in love with his photography he is literarily screaming at you: “Isn’t that a great shot …seriously look what I can do with a camera …can you see Abu Raed standing in the dark in front of this door with a fluorescent light on top…isn’t it great.. here look at it some more (still). What about that split screen with the kids washing their hands and the mother cooking…damn I’m good”. Then you can see him in the background proceeds to high fiving himself. Nevertheless the artsy fartsy part of the shooting was not that bad.
On many occasions camera zooms were unnecessary and unnatural. When the kid hands Abu Raed his bags back why do we need a zoom and three cuts to the hand exchange and back. In one of Murad’s early encounters with captain Abu Raed you could actually feel the jerking action of the camera as it zooms towards Murad. By the end of “Abu Raed and the female lead character are driving away from the airport in her car” scene I can easily tell you the number of Abu Raed nose hairs.
On a separate note, how many shots of East Amman’s building crammed on top of each can you squeeze in a two-hour film? Okay, we got.it…it is not a secret that East Amman looks great when you look at it while enjoying your 8JDs continental breakfast at Wild Jordan. All fifteen bars, restaurants and coffee shops which have this view know it. And what’s up with the Amman landmarks: the flag, the bridge, the castle mountain, the car museum, the mosque … Ministry of Tourism promotional videos has less emphasis on landmarks…I spent the whole movie waiting a shot of Petra and the guy water skiing in Aqaba. Oh well, I guess one have to keep the target audience in mind.
Kids exploitation.
No plot can force the audience into fake “ahhs and ooohs” like a bunch of poor kids. With the chubby dancing kid as the cherry on the top. Maybe a few cute cats with pink ribbons could have done a better job. Or maybe a cute dog playing the improbable Ammanite stray doggie. Dureid Lahham played a similar version of Abu Raed in Kafroon , with a tighter plot and a more genuine and loveable lead.
Sexual tension
Maybe I have a perverted view on things but wasn’t there a little too much sexual tension between Abu Raed and the lead female character? If anything it was more probable than the unclear father-daughter relationship – if that’s what the director was shooting for. At the conclusion of the “laying on their backs sharing worries on the roof” scene. there could have been easily a cute awkward kiss, ending with uncomfortable silence and “I have to go now” …cut… Now that’s directing.
Conclusion
Think about it as a bunch of college students studying abroad who put together a Dabkeh show for international week. It may not be exactly be traditional Dabkeh, the costumes have nothing to do with the traditional ones, the coordination is minimal and three quarters of the participants have never seen a dabkeh before. But with some loud music and jumping around, everybody loves it and it leaves a good impression
The best thing that can be said about the movie is it is the anti-FUBU. It is a movie made by them for them (and “them” is not meant to imply anything negative). From Amman’s skyline to the made-up kids’ school uniforms (so the brown jump suits does not present Jordan in a positive manner?) the target audience is the international stage and the Sundance film festival.
The director has never claimed that he is trying to make a cinematographic masterpiece. He wanted to make a decent film with good resources and a professional crew to present Arabs and Jordan from a perspective that breaks stereotypes…..etc, etc. The target audience liked it and that means it was successful. So congratulations.
Personally, I liked Suffi Suffi much better.
P.S. I don’t know what to make of the shot-from-the-trunk Tarantino tribute, but I hope the Sundance people liked it.