Al-irhabi

This is one of the worst films you can ever see. Adil Imam was at the bottom of his career, and this is his way of trying to come to the top.

The sixty year old actor goes with the wave in critisizing the Islamic Extremists, in the hope that it will save his career. In the movie, he plays a very young extremist and tries to portray the thoughts that lead him to change his evil ways. Although, I personally do not endorse extremism in any walk of life, I still did not find it an accurate portrayal of the character.

The way that the character is portrayed is not realistic. From the start you can see that this character cannot be real. A young man, who looks like he is sixty year old, and who is not married, unlike real-life extremists who are probably married by the age of 14, and who is continously thinking about sex. This is absoloutly unreal.

In my humble opinion, Adil Imam who was for years one of the best Arabic comedy actors, should have stayed with comedy and left drama and serious movies to actors that are younger and more capable.

Bad movie, Bad actor, Bad evrything really.

This is one of Imam's worse films--if not the worse. It tries to deal with the complex issues of Islamic fundamentalism in a very simplistic and shallow way. It is full of clichés and bad acting.

If you want to contrast it to something better that deals with the same issues see "Al Irhab w al Kabab" (Terrorism and Kebabs) , or "Tuyur al Dhalam" (Birds of darkness, but do not know what the English title is). Another good recent Imam film is "Al la'aeb ma'a alkibar" (playing with the big guys ...more or less), but it doesn't deal with Fundementalism, it deals instead with gmnt corruption.

Imam can be very good--but he need a good script and a good director to be the brains behind his performance.

Dealing with the very sensitive issue of Islamic terrorism in 90's and how can ideological change can happen , highly recommended.