First of all, allow me to congratulate any and all Lebanese effort, skill, and talent in all major entertainment fields, specifically TV and film, of course Ms. Nadine Labaki's beautiful "Where Do We Go Now?" and the funny yet mediocre "Cash Flow". I already expressed my feedback, opinion, and critique of Ms. Labaki's second feature so I will skip that and communicate what I thought about "Cash Flow". On a positive notion, Sami did a very good directorial job with his comedic feel in framing the shots, the montage, and the choice and use of music but I felt the movie lacked many elements, starting with pace and climax. The movie's rhythm was rather monotonous and boring, the movie history and our exposition to it has taught us well that once you introduce the characters, the story, and the conflict, the tempo of the movie has to increase and become faster until a climax is reached and after that a resolve or the conclusion, the movie stayed the same from beginning to end. As far as characters, they were flat and one-dimensional, we don't even know what the main role works, we just see him sitting behind a desk in the office; there was weak and poor acting skills, I felt the only good acting was executed by Carlos Azar . . .period, I can understand and agree that we have A class acting, B-class acting, etc.. so I can't bring a non-actor and judge his acting because he or she is not an actor or an actress in the first place, so why cast a non-actor? I tell you why, because the name is big and popular, that I don't understand, come on people, when are we ever going to change??? I don't want to name the characters or the actors respectively, some of the acting in this movie crossed the ridiculous line. Bad acting generates weak credibility.
Story, story, story! Okay Sami said once in an interview that this movie is simple, not complicated, funny, and anyone would enjoy it or something of that nature, great, the movie is simple but simple does not mean empty and void of any themes, even the silliest American comedies have a theme(s), take for example American Pie, yes American Pie has a theme, what is the theme of this movie? What is this movie, a comedy, social, thriller, all together?!!!!
My biggest problem with this movie is the fact that we are we still trying to 'westernize' our ideas, the characters, the settings of some scenes are clearly influenced by American movies, characters like the cop or detective with his coat and poses in front of the board full of pictures, did you ever see a Lebanese detective like that?? The bad idiot guys portrayed by Hisham Haddad and that other unknown actor, and the Lebanese "SWAT" team in the beginning of the movie, etc I just hope next time Sami Koujan can make better use of his ideas and directorial skills in making a true Lebanese movie and giving the writing task to a more qualified talent instead of writing the script himself and I do hope and wish to God that he casts real actors.
Story, story, story! Okay Sami said once in an interview that this movie is simple, not complicated, funny, and anyone would enjoy it or something of that nature, great, the movie is simple but simple does not mean empty and void of any themes, even the silliest American comedies have a theme(s), take for example American Pie, yes American Pie has a theme, what is the theme of this movie? What is this movie, a comedy, social, thriller, all together?!!!!
My biggest problem with this movie is the fact that we are we still trying to 'westernize' our ideas, the characters, the settings of some scenes are clearly influenced by American movies, characters like the cop or detective with his coat and poses in front of the board full of pictures, did you ever see a Lebanese detective like that?? The bad idiot guys portrayed by Hisham Haddad and that other unknown actor, and the Lebanese "SWAT" team in the beginning of the movie, etc I just hope next time Sami Koujan can make better use of his ideas and directorial skills in making a true Lebanese movie and giving the writing task to a more qualified talent instead of writing the script himself and I do hope and wish to God that he casts real actors.
