I thought I spotted hints of conspiracy thriller The Parallax View in Tarik Saleh’s Eagles of the Republic, last of his so-called Cairo trilogy. So I asked AI – yes, it replied, Saleh has acknowledged the debt to Alan Pakula’s 1974 film. So satisfying when that happens…
Which is to say this is a political conspiracy thriller about a man wading further and further into murky waters and losing all grip on agency and, to an increasing extent, reality.
Fares Fares is again Saleh’s main man, this time around playing a fading Egyptian movie star who is asked to play Egypt’s president Abel Fattah el-Sisi in a biopic that will be produced more or less by Sisi’s regime. Declining at first – I’m not Muslim or bald and I’m far too tall, he objects – George Fahmy is pressed into service against his wishes, in what’s clearly going to be a piece of propaganda designed to lionise Sisi.
Closely observed by a mystery producer called Dr Mansour (Amr Waked), who probably works for the regime, George decides to approach the task professionally, putting personal and political qualms to one side. Undoubtedly he’s also been swayed by the fact that wider culture’s tide seems to have turned against liberals like himself. His regular co-star and old friend Rula Haddad (Cherien Dabis) is meanwhile being pressured to go on TV denouncing precisely the sort of loose living (kissing on screen!) she and George and their like have built whole careers on. Incidentally, the biopic’s title is to be The Will of the People – Saleh clearly has populism in his sights.
The film George is being forced to star in is obviously going to be a personal and artistic debacle. But George has other problems to deal with. An ill-advised fling with the defence minister’s wife (Zineb Triki, who was also the source of all the trouble in the brilliant French spy series Le Bureau des Legendes aka The Bureau). Threats against his largely estranged son (Suhaib Nashwan). A much younger girlfriend (Lyna Khoudri) who is only really with him because he’s famous. Eventually, and most consequentially, his elevation socially as a consequence of his role in the film, which puts him in contact with the shadowy Eagles of the Republic, a group of high-rankers convinced they are saving the country with their conspiratorial politicking.
From Pakula Saleh and Fares borrow the same puzzled urbanity for George that Warren Beatty had in The Parallax View. Saleh also regularly makes use of long lenses to give a sense of eavesdropping and of a loss of control. Fares switches George about – one moment bewildered, the next over-confident, an insecure man who’s been hiding behind stardom for much of his adult life. Fares is particularly good at deadpan comedy – the scene where George tries to buy viagra (the younger girlfriend) on the quiet, only to be recognised by the chemist, who wants a selfie… Funny.
The comedy leavens the darker stuff. There are real moments of angst-inducing terror in this movie – including a scene set on a helicopter to keep you awake at night. Through the regular changes of mood Saleh carefully builds tension, leading up to the point where George is asked to choose between saving his skin and betraying someone close to him.
I’ve not seen all the trilogy, but have seen The Nile Hilton Incident (so Boy from Heaven still to go), which was also a superbly deft piece of film-making, and also a political thriller. Good though that was, I think this is better – Saleh is more in command of the technicals – the warm, plush imagery and muted soundscape an ironic counterpoint to some very murky goings-on.
Nominated for the Palm d’Or, which it didn’t win, it was also submitted by Sweden as their entry for the Best International Feature Academy Award, but didn’t even make it to the nomination stage. Sweden? Yes, though this is a highly Egypt-focused film, its director now lives in Sweden – making movies like this wouldn’t make for a cosy life in Egypt – and so does its star, who grew up there. Don’t be put off by the mystifying lack of nominations more generally – this is a great film and an evening watching this back to back with The Parallax View would be en evening really well spent.
Eagles of the Republic – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2026
