Nawaf Al-Janahi presents more than merely an exciting thriller-crime film in this first feature length work of his. He merges the exciting situation originated by a story about a potential crime with a special case study of some of the characters that lead the movie. For this purpose he has taken the right choice for a story that would help him achieve his goal: a gang of robbers enter into a neighboring house of a man who is suffering from many crises. This man was robbed by his partner; he was told by his doctor that he would die of cancer soon, and he cannot tell all this to his wife. After meeting one of the gang’s members, he makes a deal with him to rob that deceiving partner so that he would give the money to his wife before his departure from life.

The film begins by introducing us to the man (Abdulmohsin Al-Nimer), and his wife (Shouq). Here he is, leaving home to visit his doctor with a dull and sad face. And then, we move to a gang of three members (with their hidden boss, the fourth), planning to rob another house. By the very first few shots of the gang members (amongst whom is Nawaf Al-Janahi himself), and by the way the scene was photographed inside the car, which was based on low angles, taking turns between the characters in medium shots, inserted between the seats and the car sides, the director succeeds in creating a feeling of anxiety and excitement during the whole movie. A feeling that most of the movies I have watched recently have failed to create. Al-Janahi’s screenplay then attempts continuously to search for an appropriate window to link the two stories together (the husband and the gang). The search ends with success, after an appropriate presentation of the two parties, by the gang’s decision to rob the house, during the absence of the wife, while the husband remains alone thinking how to handle his matters and how to tell his wife all the truth after meeting his deceitful partner attempting to retrieve his company back from him, but with no success. Then, when one of the robbers (Ali Al-Jabri, in a powerful and accurate characterization) is caught by the husband, they both come to an agreement to rob the husband’s partner. This agreement is not achieved easily, but it was well established by the director through a sequence of scenes inside the house, that it becomes persuasive as desired and achieves the intended transitional dramatic objective.

While the story continues to tell a number of surprises within a frame that tends to contemplate the events, circumstances, and characters, instead of falling into escalating the basic simple dramatic story, it appears to the viewer that despite the director’s important advantage of the design of the scene and the visual implementation of it, some parts of the film were compromised in regard to rhythm, as well as few crises within the details of the screenplay.

For example, there is another long scene between the husband and the thief. This time, it takes place in the husband’s car. The most important thing that was said in that scene was when the husband revealed to the thief that he has cancer. Other than that, the rest of the dialogue held between them becomes a mere and redundant repetition of the same situation, just to be increasingly unnecessary as it goes on. It could have been possible to break the dull tone created by that long scene by having this dialogue while they were going around with the car (especially, that the thief had proposed to the husband that they drive around by the car prior to the execution of the operation).

When the gang’s boss orders the other two members (Al-Janahi and Shehab Hamza) to interfere and force the thief to murder the husband, the director merely shows them by an incidental scene in their car driving in the darkness of the night. It would have been more appropriate to show them in the front row, aghast, worried and depressed, where it would enhance the question of whether they would kill their friend, executing the order given to them, or would they feel the difficulty and danger of what they were about to do. In any case, that scene needed such a special shot.

It can be seen that limited budget have impeded further expansion of locations as well as other options. But Al-Janahi manages to control the visual treatment in a way that would compensate for such a lack, and probably eliminates it from the mind of the unnoticing viewer. That treatment includes dealing with the story on the basis of the study of characters without exaggeration in the analysis, except for that aforementioned long scene in the car.

There is a European sensitivity in the film, and an eye capable of picking the correct elements to express the characters’ trend. All actors are good, although some of them are simply acting in front of the camera rather than getting deeper into another character. This acting in front of the camera could be one of the consequences of TV effect, or perhaps not, but it would rapidly pass through prototyping areas with a director’s decision that they are less important than to spend more time on them.

The film as a whole is a correct and successful hit in the right direction. Visional aspects are all above the general average, the execution of scenes is rather clever, and the camera is reasonably used as it was free of the desire to emphasize and show off more than necessary.