So my friends decided to go watch a movie last week and since it's summer, the majority of movies in the theaters are Arabic ones which I'm not particularly fond of (especially in the summer, when stupidity is especially high in movies whether Arabic or English) but I thought if 9 of my friends want to see the same movie, I can't stick out like a sore thumb , can I ? I wish I would've stuck to my guns though because we ended up watching one of the most hyped summer movies which is Adel Imam's latest : Morgan Ahmad Morgan.
(If you plan on seeing the movie, beware of the spoilers ahead and if you don't feel like reading all of the details, you could always scroll down to the bottom line at the end. )
At the beginning of the movie , we see a plethora of products of a wide variety all produced by the companies of one very wealthy man, Adel Imam's character , Morgan Ahmad Morgan ( MAM).
His first appearance in the movie is to face a little problem with officials from the tax department who were reviewing his records all while seeming quite serious about their jobs. What does he do about this problem? Why, bribe them of course! This basically sets the tone for the rest of the movie where he bribes just about everyone who intentionally or not stands in his way.
MAM has two grown children , who are attending a private and expensive university and are strangely enough in the same year/class despite being born in different countries. His daughter, an opinionated young woman, faces a little problem when she gets into an argument with one of her professors and asks for her father's help of course. On arriving to the University he finds her brother playing tennis with one of the professors, Dr. Gihan (Mervat Amin) and he finds himself quite taken by the lovely Professor on seeing her in her cute tennis outfit. This scene also sets the tone for the Mervat Amin's role throughout the remainder of the movie. It seems like she basically showed up to show off her newly acquired slim figure , her wardrobe and how her face seems to be botoxed within an inch of her life, making it seem quite painful for her to talk and nearly impossible to move her eyebrows out of place.
The Professor attacks MAM in the university Newspaper and accuses him of being a dishonest crook and worried about further attacks from her or anyone else, he decides to run for Parliament . Who do you think runs against him? Why Dr. Gihan of course! (maho mafeesh gheirhom fel balad ba2a). He finds his own employees and children supporting his opponent and actually finds his children using slogans insulting their own father to support their candidate, despite happily spending his money throughout the movie. Anyway, he ends up buying the elections and winning of course being the rich-ass billionaire that he is.
His children sit him down in one scene to tell him that it's sometimes embarrassing when he talks and that he needs to educate himself. Therefore, he decides to go to one of those "cultural" cafes and buy a collection of awful poetry from an unknown writer and publish them in a collection under his own name, which he buys all the copies of and ends up mysteriously winning the national award as the best poet for, to prove to his children that he is cultured and educated. Dr.Gihan invites him to discuss the book and the award at the university, where another professor , the winner of many literature awards is read to attack him. What does he do to get himself out of such a mess? Why he bribes the literature professor of course, with a watch no less . For this magical watch, the professor completely changes his position and sings MAM's praises . Gihan (who he also tries to bribe but fails) still finds a way to embarrass him after which he ends up deciding to go the own children's university to get a real degree after offering a huge donation to the University's president. Like I said, bribes galore.
The highlights of his trip through higher education include lots of laughs provided by Ahmed Mekky and his afro, the perpetually stoned (and nameless) student and a nice little role by El Sa3dany Junior as the leader of the University's religious group(he bears an eerie resemblance to our college's own resident religious leader). There's also a ridiculous number of female college students looking like hookers for some reason , drug use and professors being bribed to give MAM A's in their subjects (except for GiGi of course). There's also a particularly disturbing scene, where MAM still recovering from the effects of a "magic pill" given to him the night before, fantasizes during a lecture that Dr.Gihan is singing Haifaa Wahbi's um.."WaWa" song . Here Mervat Amin acts all seductive and er..stuff while wearing something similar to the pj's I had when I was four and the director thankfully got a (very obvious) body double for her um...."Derriere" shots . Mervat Amin maybe hot for someone well over 60 but she's still a granny and watching a granny go into Haifaa Wahbi mode is just plain disturbing. Still enamored with her, he bribes her fiance (a well educated businessman) to dump her and go off to India to run one of MAM's companies but she still doesn't budge emotionally and insists on how much she can't stand what a lowlife he is (for now, that is) and in an interesting scene, he actually explains to her why he gives bribes and tries to convince her how he's actually being benevolent towards the less fortunate this way. MAM is also caught cheating on Dr.Gihan's test , since she's the only one he can't bribe, causing an argument between him and his children during which he slaps his daughter (played by Basma) after which she goes into what the doctor calls "sadma 3asabeya" or a nervous breakdown ( I guess) where she lies in a hospital unable to speak until her daddy apologizes to her after which she miraculously recovers within minutes.
What exactly is "sadma 3asabeya / enheyar 3asaby" which we insist on making doctors use as a diagnosis in Arabic movies? That's not a medical term and nobody goes into a catatonic state where they can't speak/eat/function because their Daddy slapped them and recover instantly because he apologizes.
Anyway, Daddy promises to make them proud and studies hard till he graduates (barely). He also woos Dr.Gihan by constant and ubiquitous conformations of his love and when he graduates by his own effort finally..can you guess what happens next , kids? Yep, that's right...GiGi finally falls for him and says "I do!" followed by a "Screw You!" from me and most of the people in the theatre.
Bottom line : Silly movie, hazy storyline with ridiculous, unrealistic events and promotes the idea that anyone in society can be swayed from their beliefs by money no matter how strong their principals are. May provide a few laughs by Adel Imam as well as the younger comic actors in the movie but may also end up decreasing your IQ by several points and have you weeping over the 2 hours of your life you just lost.
4 years ago
