A broke extra accidentally becomes a fake ransom negotiator. Chaos ensues.
Ahmed Talaba (Younis Shalaby) is married to Afkar (Shahira) and suffers from severe financial distress. He works as an extra and is fired from films because of his interference in the directors’ work. He installs a new phone, but receives a wrong call from (Morsi) who tells him that he has kidnapped his daughter and demands a ransom of 200,000 pounds, although he does not have a daughter in the first place. He decides to continue the dialogue, investigate it, and save the girl.
Acting
Younis Shalaby's frantic everyman desperation is peak Egyptian comedy.
Writing
Absurdist premise grounded in real Cairo economic anxiety.
Director
Ismail Hassan
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Younis Shalaby was Egypt's king of neurotic everyman comedy; this role epitomizes his anxious, fast-talking style that defined 80s-90s Egyptian cinema.
The 'wrong number ransom' premise brilliantly satirizes how economic desperation makes ordinary Egyptians fantasize about criminal underworlds they'd never actually enter.
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