Egybest Sacrifices Its Original Story on the Altar of Eid Cinema

This review contains spoilers.

When I walked into a movie theatre on the first day of Eid to watch Egybest, I did not expect an Eid film. Perhaps that’s on me – the release date is nothing short of on the nose. Still, for months, the film was marketed as a based-on-true-events take on the most infamous piracy platform in Arab culture – sold with exaggerated (and sometimes false) claims about the oversized impact of the makeshift, free-for-all streaming platform. I went in expecting a tech thriller in the vein of The Social Network, a documentary-style ethical probe like The Pirates Bay: AFK, or even a fast-paced rise-and-fall drama a la The Wolf of Wall Street. I couldn’t have been more far off.

The film starts off like you’d expect it to, sketching a pre-piracy Egypt of prohibitively expensive tickets and an undying love for all things film. Saber, played by Marwan Pablo in his acting debut, sneaks a handycam into a theatre to record films for the black market. His childhood friend Mohammed Shawky, played by Ahmed Malek, sees something bigger – a way to democratize film while turning enough profit to push through their financial hardships.

Around the ten-minute mark, the film loses that tempo and never regains it. As the duo assembles the team that will eventually run Egybest – from cybersecurity to subtitling – the film veers into a satirical Ocean’s Eleven. The crew is made up of offbeat, one-dimensional caricatures: a porn-streaming tech child prodigy, a heavily accented teacher who disciplines with a stick, a conspiracy theory-addled programmer. What could have been a sharp look at underground economies instead turns into sketch comedy.

The cast, which spans the two leads’ families and entourage, is made complete by their shared love interest, Anwar, played by Salma Abu Deif. Through no fault of the actress, her character delivers the final blow to the film’s original promise. The narrative abandons its central premise in favor of a tired love triangle, while any serious engagement with piracy, democratizing access, or digital ethics fades further back in the side mirror.

Once you ditch your hope for a serious treatment of the subject matter, Egybest is not without its charm as a light Eid watch. Its popcorn comedy lands more often than not, and its quirky, heist-like ensemble delivers whimsical moments when you least expect them. The film also boasts an enchanting visual production, from the neon-lit internet café that doubles as an HQ for the piracy website, to the polished color grading and frame composition that make you want to pause and admire the view.

Things start to crumble when we turn our attention to the script, as Egybest doesn’t just lean into tropes, it confines itself to them. Two colorful shaabi wedding scenes blasting mahraganat? Check. A family tragedy? Check. A comedic car chase? Check. Utterly busy juggling these tropes, the film doesn’t catch a minute to put forward something it can call its own.

The writing falters further in its handling of Saber and Anwar. In one of the film’s most troubling moments, a drunken Saber attempts to force himself on Anwar, his best friend’s fiancée. The script seems to intentionally muddle responsibility, audaciously implying she may have provoked his actions to drive a wedge between the friends, placing part of the blame for the assault on the victim. The fallout to Saber’s behavior is brief, and forgiveness quickly follows, as he is reunited with Mohammed while Anwar is discarded by both. Bros before hoes much?

While the supporting cast surrender to their roles, the leading trio try to push through. Ahmed Malek and Salma Abu Deif move slowly but determinedly under the weight of malnourished character development and worn-out dialogue, trying to add nuance to exaggerated reactions as much as a good actor can.

Pablo, meanwhile, benefits from a darker, more restrained character, allowing him to deliver a solid big-screen debut with an abundance of charisma. Having said that, one can’t downplay how strategic his casting was for the filmmakers, drawing in around half the buzz and turnout around the film.

Lastly, the film joins a recent wave of productions approaching Gen Z as an exaggeratedly short attention-span generation, trying to appeal to it with fast-paced editing and reel-like scenes. Within the context of a well-rounded production, this could have been a nice edge to the film, but without it, it comes across as more gimmicky than innovative – a broom sweeping the film’s glaring script issues under a rug of dazzlingly fast montage.

Instead of an original story with an Eid release schedule, Egybest gives us an Eid film that happens to have an original story behind it. While we end up learning next to no useful facts about the website at hand – denying us the opportunity for an ethical examination of piracy in the streaming age – it nearly holds its own as a holiday watch: funny when it’s not trying too hard, and, at times, unintentionally hilarious when it does.

P.S. In classic fashion, someone has already captured the film on a handycam and uploaded it to a new mirror of Egybest.