lucywalkercats It's pretty clear this director watched a variety of Western films and tried to contrive this nonsensical story. The cinematography was decent, but the acting was very patchy. Skip this one.

lookslikelykkeli Basically a copy of Argo set in Lebanon. The acting is sub-par, especially the Seth Rogen lookalike character. Skip this.

Habib Saleh giving this film 10/10 was not that hard, for everyone who is able to watch this film, don't miss a chance to watch it, very big shot is a very big film !! excellent characters building, excellent plot, very realistic and brilliant script with a very moving story, such an amazing film !! The film explores fraternal relationships, Christian- Muslim relationships, Lebanon's recent violent history and film making and all under two hours! The script is witty, the acting superb and set and location edgy and evocative. The ending is very ambiguous and can be interpreted in one obvious way. The director, who was present at the London film festival's screening, declined to fix the interpretation of the ending, leaving to up to viewers to decide the line that leads to Ziad's final act. It is clear that this film is deeply symbolic and represents Lebanon and its politics as much as any domestic action drama.

PoppyTransfusion This is an exciting and funny film that ends ambiguously. A trio of brothers - Ziad, Joe and Jad(o) - are involved in a fight that goes awry. Ziad shoots their foe with the latter's gun and a murder enquiry ensues. The youngest brother, Jad, decides to confess to the murder pleading manslaughter. Although the police are sceptical of his confession, Jad is sentenced to a reduced prison term for manslaughter and serves 5 years.Ziad and Joe continue to run their father's pizza take away and become involved with a local drug lord who uses their delivery service to supply cocaine. To make reparations to Jad, Ziad wants to stop their criminal activities in favour of purchasing a restaurant that he can run with Jad whilst Joe continues with the take away. The drug lord, Abu Ali, does not agree to Ziad's proposition and appears to set up Ziad's murder as a consequence.In revenge Ziad takes Abu's drug consignment and intends to market it himself in order to provide for the restaurant. He learns that cinema reels for development are not subject to the same security procedures when being freighted abroad and decides to use this as cover to sell his illicit merchandise. He recruits an associate, who is a budding film director, to help him and much hilarity ensues as they embark upon making a real film as legitimate cover for the drug exports. This allows for many wry digs at film makers and production.Meanwhile Abu Ali and his henchman, Hussam, are planning their own revenge on Ziad and realise from Ziad's exploits that there is limited time within which to act. Cue explosions, the media and a kidnapping. All merry mayhem that seems unlikely to end well.The film explores fraternal relationships, Christian-Muslim relationships, Lebanon's recent violent history and film making and all under two hours! The script is witty, the acting superb and set and location edgy and evocative. The ending is very ambiguous and can be interpreted in one obvious way. The director, who was present at the London film festival's screening, declined to fix the interpretation of the ending, leaving to up to viewers to decide the line that leads to Ziad's final act. It is clear that this film is deeply symbolic and represents Lebanon and its politics as much as any domestic action drama.If you have the opportunity to see the film then take it. As I write it is making film festival rounds in the hope of achieving distribution. It had yet to be screened in Beirut and there was a nervousness about how it would be received, if at all, given the director eschewed the Lebanese guidelines for film production.