O Engenheiro

Supposed true tale "The Engineer" shoulda been topical & interesting, but its production standards (under director Danny A Abeckaser), writing (Kosta Kondilopoulos) & acting are SO bad it fails completely. In 1995 Yahya Ayyash (Adam Haloon) masterminded horrific Hamas terrorist bombings across Israel - so was hunted in Gaza by Shin Bet agents (led by Emile Hirsch (of the tanked career)) and an ex-Mossad hit squad (led by Angel Bonanni - funded by US Sentaor Robert Davi who wants to personlly kill Ayyash to avenge his daughter who died in the attacks (true story huh?)). This cheap, pitiful tosh is certainly NOT another "Zero Dark Thirty".

I don't get how they failed so badly with this movie. They took a bunch of brilliant actors who I have seen excel in other shows (such as Fauda) and made this movie that just doesn't work. I think the biggest mistake was having everyone (Israelis, arabs) speaking in English to each other. It takes away so much authenticity from the movie. They should have just let everyone speak in their own languages and that's it. The way they speak when it's in English just feels so fake and takes away from the acting. There's minimal character development, too little action and you don't get invested in any of the characters. This had SO much potential but utterly failed. I love movies and shows in this genre and couldn't believe the other reviews but they were spot on sadly :(

Never seen such a important issue like the Israel/Palestine conflict treated so poorly and ultimately in such a disrespectful manner.

The acting is appalling and the script seems to have been written by amateurs, with more plot holes than a suisse cheese. Saddens me to see a good actor like Emile Hirsch envolved with such a bad movie.

Movies that adress real life situations have the responsability to work as educational tool for the audience, but this one goes in the opposite direction.

All the victims of this horrible war that lasts for decades deserved a better homage.

I love cinema, this is not cinema.

After just finished watching pretty much the exact same filmmakers and cast in the Inside Man that was very impressive for an indie production, this film does a 180 and was shockingly a huge mess. I'm a fan of "based on true events" films, especially when they are filmed effectively like Inside Man which was done right for an indie B-film, but sadly this wasn't one of those. The entire normally comfortable 92 min runtime dragged on and on endlessly, with horrible pacing, lackluster direction that made even the few action scenes boring, and a story that was choppy and convoluted. It's hard to believe it was the same writers and directors that made both films, as they are night and day. It's too bad, this had promise, but it just failed to deliver the goods.

This doesn't have the script, direction or acting quality of "Fauda". It's very slow in the beginning and bogs down at times. They should have used Hebrew and Arabic throughout with English subtitles instead of jumping between three languages. It improves toward the end.

The insertion of "family drama" turns this from an interesting story to another boring American type police/family drama. I don't care about their family relationships, I turned in to watch a Shin Bet/Sabak operation to find a bomber. There is a reason that Fauda is popular in many countries including Arab ones, it has quality.