The Angel

The Angel gives an semi biographical account on the life of Ashraf Marwan, the son in law of the stalwart Egyptian president Anwar Sadat. The majority of events in the movie focuses on the events relating to the 1973 Yom Kippur war and how the Israeli intelligence, Mossad received the information and "Handled" it. The accuracy and veracity of certain parts in the movie remains doubtful to an ardent military history reader like me.

On the technical front most of the work resembled a high quality Hollywood B list movie. However the with the limitations on the budget "The Angel"'s director has pulled a miracle in my opinion. Cinematography is good and error free in general. Acting is good to moderate for a B list movie, as viewers only look for the gripping story and not expect top notch performances. Screenplay is well adapted from a book and has some chilling moments within. Make up and costumes were a little below par.

Overall The Angel is exciting one time watch for audiences who have either lived through or heard about the era of Arab-Israeli wars and tension. For others it's a normal movie with a little bit of action, suspense and a "Cool" history lesson.

Subject: 10/10; Film execution: 3/10

Ashraf Marwan is so-called the greatest asset for Israel as a spy in the 20th century. The film, however, failed to address the two central questions and thereby did not get viewers engaged emotionally.

The questions are (1) who Ashraf Marwan was (i.e. what brought him up to such a high ranking position even after his father-in-law President Nasser passed away); and (2) what his motivation as a spy was (i.e. why his patriot drive forces were not fulfilled within the Egyptian Presidential Office.) The biggest problem for me is the true reason why Marwan leaked critical information about war prep from his country to the enemy. The film seemingly described him like a peacemaker, but the leak served for only Israel's interests and caused damages on Egypt's side, from my viewpoint.

In order to fully illustrate the true story of Marwan, the film should've more deeply told about prolonged political tensions and dynamics between the Arab League and Israel, and more importantly described how Marwan made moves under the situation. Without explaining political efforts made by both sides, Marwan in this film looks merely like a betrayal idiot desperately in need of money.

Rather, the producers allocated more time to focus on soap opera-ish family matters and personal relationship between Marwan and his handler from the Israel Mossad. Such unstructured screenwriting and directing are everywhere in this film and derailed me from the main theme. So while watching I was frequently forced to google the Yom Kippur War in the 1970s as well as key players. And then I learned that the film ruined the original novel written by a political science professor. Although I only skimmed the novel, it is very informative yet intriguing and easy to understand in a politically neutral way.

This film could've been better if directed by someone else and made as a TV mini series, not a 2-hour film. Poor acting - which some other reviewers have already pointed out - is not mainly due to lack of acting skills or low budget, but inevitable due to shallow cheesy screenwriting with multiple plot holes. Still it may be worthwhile for those who are interested in but not so familiar with the history of the Middle East. At least for me it became a good start to further research for myself.

The plot was good, not sure how much of it was in line with the actual story. Actors did justice to their role. However the screenplay could've been a lot better. In a nutshell, it didn't go all nine yards but it's definitely a good one time watch

Some reviewers question did this really happen. Well on April 4, 1973 "Two Arabs made an unsuccessful attempt to attack passengers of an El Al plane at the Rome airport. They were arrested but later released and sent to Lebanon." This quote is from the New York Times article "Few Arab Terrorists Are Punished for Hijackings and Killings" published on Dec 20, 1973. There is also a Time article that reviews what is documented in history and what is the movie makers creative license.

I enjoyed the movie. Watch it with some popcorn.

The Arabic language was not right and was not Egyptian one, so we could use Egyptian actors or just keep it all in English, for the actors, I think they are really nice and good. for the story, It was amazing, I'm an Egyptian young man and I didn't read about Ashraf Marwan, and I was shocked by how intelligent he was and the final part was like O.O so I think it's a very good movie for you If you are interested about this part of history for this part of Earth, the middle east