Rooze Sevom

The Third Day is reminiscent of the Hollywood World War II movies with the Bathist Iraqis replacing the German Nazis. It is a straight forward action movie with none of the socio-political themes of many other Iranian war films, notably those of Ibrahim Hatamikia.

The story is set in Khoramshar, near the Iraqi border, and concerns a young man, Reza, who in a desperate attempt to put her crippled sister out of harm's way of invading Iraqi forces, hides her in a grave like hole in their garden & then flees, but not before promising her that he'll be back in the evening with back-up forces to rescue her. The Iraqi forces are led by Fouad, who was a suitor of Reza's sister when they were teachers at the same school before the war. He is convinced that she is still in the vicinity of the house and orders his men to surround the place waiting for her rescuers to come. The plot is not that different to say a Dirty Dozen type movie where Allied forces have to rescue someone from a Nazi fortress.

The action is handled competently and The Third Day is quite entertaining, though never raising above a standard action movie. The biggest mystery is how it won the best film, best director and best actress award at the International Iranian (Fajr) Film Festival!