The only problem of this movie is that it is a horror sci-fi movie, rather than a thriller. It's full of evil, blood, unsettling landscapes and unescapable misery. The ending is unrealistic.
The Worthy
2016 [ARABIC]
Action / Sci-Fi / Thriller
Plot summary
A visually spectacular dystopian take on an Arab world torn apart by social disorder.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
January 09, 2023 at 12:42 PM
Director
Tech specs
720p.WEB 1080p.WEBMovie Reviews
A horror movie with unrealistic ending
Depressing, filled with redundant violence, yet intriguing
I gave this film a 6 because of it's beautiful cinematographics and the location where it is shot. I found the acting adequate and the film has some integrity. I also find Arabic a beautiful language and I understand some. The film was incredibly atmospheric and I don't regret the viewing. However, the plot is flawed and I don't like the conveyed message at all. On top of this it is packed with awful mistakes made by the characters and thus the director/writer. Let me elaborate.
The film starts with a truckdriver, who turns out to be the initial protagonist, giving a man a lift. A voiceover tells that this man is some kind of prophet or visionary. A feel of desolation and a post-apocalyptic setting is conveyed, which I love, and during the first ten minutes we are introduced to a group of people living in some sort of gated compound, an old destroyed factory, trying to survive the ordeal of a world where the water supply is contaminated. They are then visited by a drifter played by Ali Suliman, who also plays a Taliban member in 'Lone Survivor'. He holds a woman hostage with a chain attached to her, it is clear he uses her as some kind of bargaining tool. Under cover by his son with a scoped rifle with merely three bullets, the leader of the good guys opens the gate with the incentive to help the woman. He offers to give the drifter some gallons of water in exchange for the woman. However, during the negotiations the drifter slits her throat suddenly, awfully graphic on screen.
Why would the drifter do that? She dies for no reason. She is also the most beautyful woman in the film. Obviously she was his cover and bargaining tool. Or was he so desperate to get water in a frenzy? Would it not be better to just coöperate? He is covered by some dude in the back with a modern looking crossbow. The guy misses an arrow and gets shot by the good guy with the scoped rifle. Suddenly there is a third guy throwing a knife like a ninja hitting the drifters neck, one foot away from our good guy. He get's shot too, but only in his shoulder and it doesn't seem to do anything while it is 7.62 ammo. Yeah right. This third guy, named Mussa, explains he actually aimed for the drifter, which is totally inconceivable because the leader and the drifter where brawling. He could have hit any of the two. The leader of the group stays somewhat reluctant to trust Mussa, but his son insists he saved his fathers live and they need to be let in. And so it goes. Furthermore, nobody thinks of picking up the crossbow, while it is clearly a great asset for the group. Who writes this stuff? This is in the first ten minutes!
It is soon clear that the real acting performance is done by the bad guy Mussa, played by Samer Ismael, but he only appears for like 10 minutes in the entire film. A huge letdown! Mussa is accompanied by a girl, presumably his girlfriend or wife, but it is clear that she is really elusive and uncomfortable. For me it was apparent that she is not to be trusted and that they have a pact. She is introduced as being Kurdisch and doesn't speak Arabic and in that way she stays mysterious. We are introduced to the characters, sitting at a campfire. They all found refuge in an old plane factory and tell what they did in their former lives. I found them all likable but it is soon clear that they are all way to weak to survive in this harsh reality surrounded by crazy people. Inundated by surprise and naïvety, the leader of the group is stabbed to death by Mussa and a psychotic killing sequence is started what will fill most part of the film. It is, however, way to predictable.
The son is now the protagonist. People die in most horrible ways and it is all filmed quite clear. The guy Mussa destroys their water supply by rigging the water tower, killing one man and crippling another. The booby traps, made with makeshift grenades were unbelievable to me. The crippled guy, actually the best friend of the protagonist and the illicit lover of the protagonists sister, gets his leg amputated but we never hear from him again when they later leave to find another water supply. The whole sequence where his leg gets amputated is pointless. His character is not developed at all. On top of this, with the exception of a couple of shots, the characters never seemed thirsty, while that is the whole premise of the film.
We are confronted with a character who seemed like the more 'intelligent' person because he is shown while reading books, sitting by himself, but suddenly he starts to perform mutiny. He is then banished by the group, only to be found later in a basement, entangled in a strange and contrived trap where he is hanged by his wrists, his tongue removed and his shoes filled glass. Why would Mussa do that? Why go through all that ordeal to create traps like that, with no water and no real means to survive longer than a couple of days? The protagonist then KILLS the banished guy by suffocating him, ending his misery. Yet it seemed like a drastic measure and surprised me. It's a human being after all and his injuries were not lethal. While doing this they leave the hatch to the basement open while Mussa is at large. How stupid can you be? It's almost like they all deserved to die. Of course, Mussa closes the hatch, trapping them. Because of this another woman dies in agony while she is burned to death. This is where I had to look away, it was just too violent for no reason. The special effects were quite good but the violence is totally redundant.
The film moves to the finale where all the good guys but the protagonist and the sister of the protagonist are dead. And of course Mussa is lurking somewhere. The sister, Maryam, a driven and brave woman, is balancing on an old wing of a plane, another trap created by Mussa. When the wing tips over to one side she will be hanged. The rope around her neck is in fact barbed wire, adding to the horror of this film. The cable is way up in the air and you can't see the ceiling. How could Mussa create this trap in so little time? We get to see a balancing act while the boss fight takes place but Mussa is on the winning hand. Seeing this, the sister commits suicide. The whole trap is therefore pointless! It is anticlimactic in the worst sense! Mussa is then shot by a flare-gun and he burns to death. This time we see NOTHING as opposed to the horrible deaths of good, likable characters. Really?
So, in order to understand the point of this film you think: Oke, Mussa is just a psychopath, right? All his killing was senseless. After all, he destroyed their water tower deliberately so it wasn't power or water he was after.
It gets better! Or worse!
His elusive kurdish girl turns out to be some kind of superstrong special forces babe, suddenly hitting and overpowering the protagonist and telling the kicker: She and Mussa were both some kind of scouts for a group in Medina, trying to 'repair' mankind by killing off the weak persons. She literally says that. So they go trough all this ordeal to psychotically KILL all these likeable innocents because they are WEAK? I literally said out loud: I don't like this message at all... She then carves what appears to be their branding of some sort in his neck, telling him he needs to come to Medina to join their group: She let's him live because as far as she's concerned he is the strongest person deserving to live, WHILE UNDER HIS COMMAND EVERYBODY DIED??? Obviously I noticed all the religious names of the characters and the intended allegory but it all felt empty to me.
Then you think the film is finished but we witness the protagonist start his journey to Medina. He then 'coincidentally' meets the prophet we see in the beginning and the film tries to put some kind of symbolism and philosophical notions in the last minutes.
It fails. For me at least.
Resuming my rating: A generous and actually too high 6/10 because of great cinematography, good looking effects, a nice location, reasonable integrity from the actors and a nice palpable atmosphere. But in essence packed with flaws.
Innovative & Entertaining!
I highly recommend this movie; it's quick paced, well acted & directed; production values are really good, despite the low budget; gore and sfx are really top notch! It's a very lean, fast paced dystopian action movie, full of plot twists and expert direction & photography.