The reclusive oracle

The message is clear, the film crude. Hani Mustafa finds little to write home about in Fattah Eineik

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In Fattah Eineik ( Open Your Eyes ) director Osman Abu- Laban and script writer Mohamed Hefzi opted to jettison any of the subtleties of which film is capable in favour of sermonising. And in deciding to preach at the audience they manage to turn the screen into a sledgehammer which is then used to crack the proverbial walnut.

It's not that they are dishonest about this. The very title of the film -- Open Your Eyes -- provides sufficient warning. The message couldn't be clearer: don't be distracted, don't shut down your mind in the search for quotidian pleasures but look at the bigger picture. Know the real enemy, the real cause of political and economic problems and, since this is an action film that errs on the side of espionage, the invisible hand behind the murders you are about to witness on the screen.

In a scene in the second half of the film Ali, played by Mustafa Shaaban, an advertising agent working for a media establishment that owns more then one publication and a television station, is on the rooftop of a large building overlooking the Nile, together with an officer from state security. The officer tries to answer questions asked by Ali. "If you do not know who your enemy is than you must be unable to see," he tells the hapless ad man. It is an answer that sums up the film, at least in terms of obviousness and heavy handedness.

Even before the title sequence we see a businessman entering his house only to find that his family has been tied up by a mysterious group who are threatening to blow up the house if he fails to give them the electronic chip they are seeking. The titles then begin to roll over news footage reporting various international events together with the death of the businessman's family killed, it is reported, in a gas explosion at their suburban villa.

Whatever interest is generated by the opening, indebted to American action films, quickly dissipates as we are introduced to the naively stereotyped characters. Sherif El-Nahas, played by Saleh Abdel-Nabi, a journalist who works for the same establishment as Ali, is clearly intended to serve as the vehicle for the concerns of his entire generation, an indication of just how clunking the film will be.

He is that most improbable of creatures, a serious journalist, and naturally deeply in love with his fiancée Rasha, played by Bushra. Ali, by way of contrast, appears whimsical: his interests extend little beyond girls and securing the big advertising campaigns that guarantee a large, disposable income. The depth of his interest in women we must take on trust, since all we actually see is Ali making passes. Indeed, we must take practically everything about Ali on trust since the script does not deign to give its leading character any depth. Ali and Sherif are, incidentally, life-long friends, a fact that only becomes clear when the latter is killed in a car accident that Ali witnesses.

Yasmin, played by Nelly Karim, is looking for the journalist who reported the news of her father's death despite the fact that he is undergoing treatment in hospital. Among Sherif's papers Ali finds a drawing of a man who closely resembles the driver of the car that killed his friend. And what the audience knows, and Ali doesn't, is that the same man headed the gang that killed the businessman's family. So far so good: an assassination and the theft of a computer chip -- we are moving away from crime and into espionage. The film then introduces the characters that constitute the task force that will crack the case.

Ali wants nothing more than to find his friend's killers. Yasmin trusts Ali on sight, and is convinced Sherif could not have published news of her father's death without first checking the facts. Then there is the philosopher, Said El-Rawai, played by Khaled Saleh, a wise man who lives like a hermit in the media institution's archives, of which he is the head, and who is on hand to provide pearls of wisdom and, when necessary, strengthen the will of the others. He has abandoned journalism, largely because so many newspapers refused to publish his articles, and now serves as that stock cinematic character, the reclusive oracle. Quite why his journalism now goes unpublished remains unexplained -- perhaps he was, in the end, a more probable version of that improbable creature, the serious journalist. Now he serves simply as a medium for philosophical judgments, telling Ali that in the search for his friend's killers he will see things that will change his view of the world forever. And there is, of course, a comic character to provide light relief, the newspaper's photographer Medhat, played by Talaat Zakaria, whose inclusion serves commercial rather than artistic ends.

As the plot unravels we learn that the gang responsible for the death of the businessman and his family and then Sherif are foreign agents. They work for a businessman, played by Khaled Zaki, whose character goes by the far less neutral name of Mosaad Mukhtar.

Mosaad possesses information about the debts of rival businessmen, which he uses to pressure them into complying with his demands. He also, somewhat predictably, conducts business on the basis of the QIZ agreement. The script attempts to tie all its loose ends around the character of Mosaad, who appears not only to be behind the earlier deaths but the eminence grise behind the QIZ agreement. He wants to buy Yasmin's father's share in an international electronics company that develops weapons, and was so desperate to possess the computer chip because it contains military secrets. Sherif, it is then revealed, also works with the police.

Cut to various sequences that appear to have been cut and pasted from American action films, including perhaps the most gratuitous car chase in cinematic history and a booby trapped bus that Ali heroically saves only to drive off the Al-Mounib Bridge, and the confusion of the film is compounded.

In the final scene Ali blows up Mosaad's plane after destroying its left wing. If you are going to put all your eggs in one basket it is necessary to ensure that it has fewer holes than Fattah Eineik. The appeal to a visceral patriotism and the pointing of so many fingers at Israel is all very well, but it really should be done with a little more dramatic conviction. This film fails, on the very basic level of structure, and in failing is drained of meaning. The message may be clear, it is just that it is consistently undermined by cinematic incompetence.