Conspiracies and power struggles in a dictatorial and patriarchal Egypt.

I enjoyed this film, the plot and characters were both very strong and intriguing. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way it started to drag and it just didnt quite hit the way i hoped it would. The writing was brilliant, the acting was great, the twists and turns genuinely surprised me. But something was missing. Im not entirely sure what. I really enjoyed Tawfeek Barhom as Adam, i think he was a compelling main character and someone easy to sympathize with. Fares Fares was very good as Ibrahim, Mehdi Dehbi was great as Zizo. I found myself enjoying Sherwan Haji as Soliman more than i expected. A personal standout to me, though, was Ahmed Laissaoui as Raed. His performance was very captivating and i enjoyed all his time on screen, im absolutely shocked that this is the only acting credit of his I can find cause i think he did amazing. I think unfortunately things just dragged a bit much for me and didnt pace as well as I'd hoped.

Like a good friend at your surprise party who sneaks up behind you and makes you guess who it is.

What I feared was going to be an erudite political drama-mine turned out to be a fascinating (if not taut) film about espionage and intrigue inside of Al-Azhar, the world's most prestigious university for Islamic learning.

While the +2-hour runtime wasn't perhaps completely merited, the film as a whole kept my attention throughout.