‘Cairo Conspiracy’: Slickly Entertaining Spy Film From Egypt [Review]

Tarik Saleh already released a movie last year for Amazon, the generic action-thriller “The Conspirator” starring Chris Pine. A few months later he was in Cannes competition with “Cairo Conspiracy.”

Now that it’s failed to get an Oscar nomination in the International Film category, Saleh’s film is being dumped in theaters tomorrow. A real shame if you ask me. At least, earlier this week, the Cesars rewarded it with a Best foreign film nomination —not a big surprise since ‘Cairo’ was an unexpected box-office hit in France.

No, “Cairo Conspiracy” isn’t any sort of high art. Generic? Sure. Slick? You better believe it. Watchable? Absolutely. Just like “The Conspirator,” it’s a spy thriller, albeit one set in Muslim-populated Egypt. A country where church and state keep clashing, both playing a heavy role in people’s day-to-day lives.

Saleh’s film has a a somewhat convoluted plot. Set in Al Azhar, the world’s most prestigious university for Islamic learning, the story revolves around the sudden death of an Imam, the search for his replacement, possible Muslim Brotherhood radicals within the student body and the mysterious murder of a student. Ensnared at the center of this twisty conspiracy is Adam (Tawfeek Barhom), a shy fisherman’s son who gets accepted to Al-Azhar.

After witnessing his new school friend getting murdered by masked swordsmen on school grounds, Adam gets recruited by a state intelligence officer (Fare Fares) to find the men who did it. It turns out Adam’s dead friend was an informant being “run” by the state security apparatus, covertly reporting back to the government on the imams’ radical political views. Now Adam has to work as a spy to make sure the Egyptian government’s favoured Imam successor gets the job.

Adam has to further infiltrate the Muslim Brotherhood faction of the university, gain their trust and bait them into admitting or committing a crime. He starts by joining their prayer club where discussions arise about Jihad, infidels and what constitutes a “real” Muslim. These are radicals and, if it were up to them, they’d change the university with their own extremist ideologies.

Saleh has a knack for creating taut, tense and terrific scenes out of this spy craft. Of course, the film can sometimes get lost in the myriade of plot twists and turns, which seem to occur every few minutes. Some work and others don’t. Regardless, you’re never taken out of the story and it’s luscious Egyptian setting.

It’s best to go into “Cairo Conspiracy” without knowing much beforehand. It’s a slickly delivered affair that recalls some of the better American spy movies of the ‘90s. Despite the conventional tropes being used here, Saleh sure knows how to turn the screws of tension up a notch. [B/B+]