Al-Raheena الرهينة

Al-Rahina (The Hostage) is a movie entirely in Arabic, lacking English subtitles. I don't speak Arabic well, but I didn't find it necessary to enjoy this movie. I missed out on a lot of the dialogue, but the plot is easy enough to follow.

Al-Rahina starts out with some freaky lady playing the violin (Nur), who turns out to be an assassin.
All right, good, the film is off to a nice start. Now we get to meet out hero, Mustafa (Ahmed Ezz). Let me pause right now and mention something about the movie. It's fairly new-2006-, but it looks like it was filmed 10 years ago. I'm not an expert on Arabic movies though; maybe they're all this quality.

Anyway, Mustafa is on a plane to the Ukraine and is unfortunately seated between a large man and his equally large girlfriend who keep smooching over his head. Mustafa starts complaining loudly until the flight attendant gives him a new seat. He gets along much better with his new seatmate, Makram, who we soon learn has won a Nobel Prize in physics. Makram and Mus quickly become buddies. When they arrive at the Ukraine, Mustafa turns around to see Makram being forced into a van which speeds off, leaving Mustafa holding Makram’s laptop.

Mustafa then goes to (what I assume is) the Egyptian Embassy. He doesn’t get much help from that front, but he does meet the reporter, Lina (Yasmine Abdel Aziz), who starts following Mus around, trying to find out more about the case.

Mustafa then meets up with a friend of his, the sleazy-looking ‘Umda’(so far as I can tell, that’s what he’s called; I’ve looked online for his name, but I can’t find it). Mustafa is brought back to Umda’s house where he meets Umda’s many roommates, a group of guys who remind me a lot of my Arab cousins. The rest of the movie involves Crazy Violin Lady dressing like a vampire and threatening poor Makram, while Mus tries to crack Makram’s laptop in an effort to find his friend.

The music tracks are wanting; it’d be better if they had used some catchier, more original music. At times, the humor seems out of place in an action movie like this, and some of the sequences are a little unbelievable.Overall, I actually rather liked the movie. Guys will like it because of the cute female reporter (Yasmine is pretty funny and her girlishness isn’t too over the top) and the action scenes, while girls can appreciate the subtler points- like how cute Ahmed Ezz is.

Basically, if you’re looking for a decent Arabic movie to watch, Al-Rahina will do nicely. And if you happen to be able to pass some title recs back to me, I’d be grateful ; )

The Official website is here, but it's in Arabic.