Rattle the Cage

From the moment I saw the trailer, I knew this film would be great and it did not disappoint.

The movie follows an alcoholic who ends up in prison in a remote town. His time behind bars suddenly becomes a living hell at the hands of a madman cop who pays a surprise visit. Will he be able to escape this lunatic?

The performances are perfect, notably Ali Suliman who plays Daban (the psycho cop) to perfection. His performance, although unique, is slightly reminiscent of Heath Ledger's Joker, in his ability to be funny as well as menacing. The comedy/chemistry between Daban and the portly female warden who takes a liking to him is brilliant. The cinematography is brilliant, dark and definitely adds to the suspense.

A highly recommended film.

'Rattle the Cage', is an awesome movie in every respect. I's totally gripping from the very start and the character of psycho cop Daban, is played with a stroke of genius by the arabic actor, Ali Suliman. It's indeed a total surprise and you don't see much coming out of Hollywood that can come remotely close to this type of intensity. a bigger surprise is, that it's come out of the United Arab Emirates! I really enjoy a good prison drama but if I had known previously the origins of this, I don't think I would have picked it up and watched it!?

While widely hailed as the first genre film to come out of the United Arab Emirates, and displaying some fun and flashy visual skill, this isn't a very deep film, nor a great one.

The story is simple and has potential. An 'everyman' type is locked in a small local jail for some sort of brawl. While waiting to be bailed out a stranger enters and brutally murders the local sheriff in front of our 'hero' and hides the body. Why? And what will he do to our protagonist? (not really a spoiler - it happens at the very start of the film).

The cat and mouse game that plays out between the two men facing off in essentially one room for the whole film is cleverly shot and definitely has real moments of fun. But the film is a bit trapped between tones. The outrageous villain is played and written too campy and over-the-top to be believable enough to be scary, but too brutally violent and dark to be much fun. And our 'hero' remains a mostly blank sketch, so it's hard to be involved on a deeper level. Throw in a mix of some predictable late turns, and others that stretch credulity and logic, and you have a film that is fast paced and fun to watch, but not one that will linger in the memory or call for a second visit.

Talal has gotten himself into trouble. He went to his ex-wife's new town of residence and got into a fight. Now he is in a dirty, dark (and probably smelly) cell in a police station in the middle of nowhere, waiting for the judge to decide on his future, with a lazy cop keeping an eye on him, and with little hope of being able to see his ex-wife again. However, when Dabaan, a cop from another station, comes in, things take a turn for the unexpected.

"Rattle the Cage" is a great thriller, gripping, with an amazing set-up (the reasons of which, we, the viewers, actually know very little of) that puts two men in very different situations face to face, with their lives on the line. Will Dabaan get his objective, whatever it is? And will he kill Talal? What options of leaving the place alive has actually Talal left?

If the beginning of the movie is good, but relaxed, from the very first moment Ali Suliman (as Dabaan) enters the scene, the movie goes to a whole new level of gripping and crazy. However, even if the atmosphere, acting and color palette is amazing, the story falters a little bit towards the end, with a couple of moments that are stretched a little bit thin.

You won't regret watching it, though.

A great suspense/drama with a comic twist, produced masterfully by Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, despite being filmed in a single location, with a few cubic meters, the suspense holds us until the end, except for small unnecessary situations, the drama moves us in the end, and the outcome is plausible and consistent, lovely...