Monopoly (The Bank of Luck)

Ahmed El Gendy's 2017 Egyptian comedy follows a lazy bank employee who turns to robbery out of anger after being fired. With a colleague and an odd friend he plans to rob the bank where they worked, and when the plan is put into action things develop unexpectedly. It is the Egyptian version of the incompetent-criminals template. The comedy rests on the timing of Mohamed Mamdouh and Akram Hosni and is largely situational. What is interesting is that it voices the problems of bank employees around pay and job security, even on comic ground. Its weakness is never taking the logic of the heist seriously and a final section that comes apart. Who it's for: viewers who like Egyptian comedy and heist films. Who it's not for: anyone wanting a tightly plotted heist, or bothered by local jokes lost in translation.