When a young woman is murdered in the high-class Hilton hotel in Cairo, veteran police officer “Noredin” (Fares Fares) is drafted in for what everyone expects to be a routine investigation where nobody really cares. Quite swiftly, however, he begins to suspect that there might be something altogether more sinister going on. It’s not that he’s offended or surprised by the crime or the corruption, indeed he has no compunction in bribing or helping himself - but this crime looks like it might have some political dimension to it when he begins to suspect that sleazy parliamentarian “Shafiq” (Ahmed Selim) is in some way involved. Rumour has it that there is a witness to the crime, so he determines to find “Salwa” (Mari Malek) before the state security people get her some concrete shoes. All the while, there is growing unrest amongst the general population with the regime and it’s enforcers, and so “Noredin” has more than one flank to protect as he closes in on answers that his bosses might prefer he didn’t. Fares reminded me a little here of John Wayne in “McQ” (1974): a disillusioned policeman who knows the system is broken and who has his own unorthodox manner of working, and he delivers the role well. “Cleopatra” cigarettes does well here too, as our investigator is rarely without a cigarette in his mouth, but it seems to help him focus on just about every aspect of his life from sex to avoiding would-be assassins on the street. It’s a quickly paced, dark and grimy thriller that very much puts the noir into film noir and there was something about the conclusion that though fairly wrong, I did think summed up the thrust of just why a revolution was needed in the first place.
