The Originals

Samir is an ordinary bank employee who loses his job, then discovers his account has been emptied, and at his lowest point finds a box containing a phone. The voice on it invites him into an organisation called the Originals, and the work sounds simple: watch people. Marwan Hamed made this as one of Egypt's large-budget productions, from a screenplay by Ahmed Mourad, folding surveillance, class and hidden power into a popular thriller shape. The scenes that put Maged El Kedwany opposite Khaled El Sawy are the best in it. The template comes from American conspiracy thrillers, and it sits oddly more convincingly inside Cairo's own bureaucracy and class structure. Who it is for: viewers curious about surveillance thrillers and contemporary Egyptian cinema. Who it is not for: anyone who needs the logic to hold to the end, since the last stretch stretches badly.