Swedish director Tarik Saleh could be a leftfield however nice decide for a Bond film, and the third entry in his Cairo trilogy — following The Nile Hilton Incident (2017) and Boy from Heaven (2022) — is the proof. Like his earlier movies, it stars terrific Lebanese-Swedish actor Fares Fares (an actor so good they named him twice), in one other precision-tooled political thriller that begins with a great deal extra humor that seen beforehand in his works however quickly ratchets up the stress for a shattering climax. Deftly and daringly mixing reality and fiction, it shares DNA with István Szabó’s 1981 Nazi-era drama Mephisto.
Like Mephisto, it’s a few self-seeking actor whose conceitedness will get him into dangerous firm. Fares performs George Fahmy, the largest film star in Egypt. They name him The Pharoah of the Display screen, and that adoration has been the smash of him. Having deserted his spouse and son, he lives together with his girlfriend Donya (Lyna Khoudri), a wonderful aspiring actress younger sufficient to be his daughter. George’s profession is mapped out within the opening credit, a sequence made up of lurid movie posters (together with, we later discover out, for one referred to as The First Egyptian in Area). One way or the other, George has saved Donya beneath the radar, however there have been rumblings about his conduct for a while, as is about to develop into obvious.
Taking Donya on a date, George encounters a coterie of his friends, who attempt to contain him within the casual militia they’ve shaped. “All of us have to guard our nation,” says one. “The enemy is all over the place.” George declines their supply, however turns into involved when his newest co-star, Rula Haddad (Cherien Dabis), involves his home, claiming she is being compelled right into a TV interview the place she will likely be pressured to dish grime on him. Rula retains mum, however their new movie collectively is already in bother with the nation’s hatchet-faced panel of censors, because it includes a scene through which an single couple suggestively share their cigarettes. “What’s this shame?” says one. “The whole lot you do is a sin.”
His long-suffering supervisor Fawzy (Ahmed Kairy) spells it out for him (“George, they’re after you”), and whereas driving out late at evening the actor is pulled up by a soldier who exhibits him an image of his son and warns of the excessive incidence of site visitors “accidents” that occur on the American college the place he’s learning. Shaken, George goes straight to his ex-wife’s home, the place the boy is, fortunately, unscathed. “Whose spouse or daughter did you sleep with this time,” she sneers. “Aren’t you too outdated for that?”
Feeling the warmth, George accepts a suggestion to take the lead in a largely fictional and utterly hagiographic biopic of (present) Egyptian president Al-Sisi. George resists at first, but it surely quickly turns into clear that darkish forces are at play, none darker than the sinister Dr. Mansour (Amr Waked), a shady authorities official supervising the movie and successfully serving as producer. George brings in a good friend to direct, asking him if he can “flip this shit into one thing respectable”. George Fahmy doesn’t make dangerous movies, says George, however he does make dangerous decisions, and this one may find yourself being the loss of life of him.
Saleh, and Fares, have quite a lot of enjoyable with the character of George, notably in a really humorous scene the place the ageing lothario stops off at a pharmacy to purchase Viagra. The pharmacist acknowledges him (“I obtain all of your films!”) and calls for a selfie, including that Cialis is a greater various (“It’s going to make you more durable than the Sphinx!”). After this, nonetheless, Eagles of the Republic turns into exponentially darker, as George finds himself getting deeper and deeper into the President’s pocket, to the purpose that he even agrees to make a speech at an necessary navy parade to commemorate the Yom Kippur Struggle.
As within the earlier movies within the trilogy, there’s a sure sense of inevitability to the occasions that observe, spiralling uncontrolled in ways in which George can’t battle, actually not after he blithely embarks on a harmful affair with a senior politician’s spouse — unaware that Dr. Mansour has him beneath shut surveillance and that he’s being manipulated by rival factions inside the navy. Unwittingly, George pulls everybody and every thing down with him, lastly dealing with the consequence of his actions in a harrowing helicopter journey.
Although it’s of a form with the opposite Cairo films, Eagles of The Republic is arguably the strongest, presumably as a result of there’s a lot wealthy real-world supply materials to attract on. It’s additionally a brilliantly executed satire on the movie business, and a haunting reminder of what occurs if you lie down with canine.
