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Captain Abu Raed Movie Review

Captain Abu Raed is a 2007 Jordanian drama film directed by Amin Matalqa and starring Nadim Sawalha. It’s a solid and sweet, but emotionally manipulative flick.

When an old airport janitor finds a captain’s hat in the trash, he gets pulled into the lives of children in his poor neighborhood. He weaves imaginary stories of his world adventures to offer hope in the face of their harsh reality. This is one of those inspirational, lightweight foreign flicks that are perfect for the Academy, which is why its omission from that year’s foreign slate was odd.

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My opinion remains the same for all of these movies – they are perfect for regular viewers and family movie nights, but for cinephiles they are far from great. Nothing about this plot was remotely original nor was it particularly well written. None of it was bad either. It’s all just solid and serviceable and that’s pretty much it.

Nadim Sawalha is so great in the main role that he lifted not just his character up, but the entire storyline too. Other characters are less interesting as this is squarely the titular protagonist’s movie and he delivered. His story was moving and inspiring.

I really liked the first half, but the second half became overly complicated in its storyline and way too sappy. The ending as definitely interesting in its ambiguity or subtle certainty depending on your own interpretation of events, but the whole villain subplot did not work for me as much as the kids’ one did.

Captain Abu Raed is very endearing in the kids’ subplot. Some of the children did seem a bit too mean to the old man, but given their poor financial situation, it was understandable that they would react like that. Their dynamic was very sweet and charming and I wish the whole movie was that first half extended to feature-length. The pacing is problematic, but the movie is very well shot, solidly directed and again superbly acted. It’s the first Jordanian movie in half a century and for that reason and for its interesting setting it’s worth checking out.

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Captain Abu Raed has a sappy, overly complicated and less interesting second half, but the first section is very good, moving and sweet. The central acting performance is terrific as is the protagonist while the story is also solid enough, but everything else was problematic, especially the pacing and clumsy writing in the second half.

My Rating – 3.5