Some films take time to gather momentum, but there’s a sense of movement right from the off in Kamal Lazraq’s debut feature. He thrusts us into a dog fight where Hassan (Abdellatif Masstouri) is among those on the losing end, something you sense that he’s used to. That it’s not a fair fight is par for the course and an indicator of where this story is likely to lead as we begin to follow him, and this is merely the start of Lazraq’s propulsively enjoyable thriller.
The dog belongs to a local gang leader Dib (Abdellah Lebkiri) and its demise leaves him rabid for revenge. It’s meant to be “a small job” and, as Hassan co-opts in his son Issam (Ayoub Elaid) to help he tells him, “God willing it will help keep us afloat”. In fact, the pair of them are soon going...
The dog belongs to a local gang leader Dib (Abdellah Lebkiri) and its demise leaves him rabid for revenge. It’s meant to be “a small job” and, as Hassan co-opts in his son Issam (Ayoub Elaid) to help he tells him, “God willing it will help keep us afloat”. In fact, the pair of them are soon going...
- 4/29/2024
- by Amber Wilkinson
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
On the mean streets of Casablanca dartingly navigated in “Hounds,” all life is shown to be casually disposable; an actual human body, however, is another matter. Taking place over one sleepless night of mounting misfortune in the Moroccan metropolis, writer-director Kamal Lazraq’s first feature is a trim, unsparing crime tale that pits social desperation against a nagging spiritual conscience. Its gig-economy gangsters may follow almost any grisly orders for a quick buck, but are equally bound to Muslim creeds and customs, glumly shrugging off any disparity between these two authorities.
Following an impoverished father-son duo as an ostensibly rote criminal errand goes bloodily awry, the film is briskly told and humidly atmospheric, though a little tonal variation wouldn’t have gone amiss amid an overriding air of hardscrabble, stomach-knotted discomfort. As its central crisis deepens and darkens, Lazraq’s script keeps teasing a gear-shift into mordant farce to which it never quite commits,...
Following an impoverished father-son duo as an ostensibly rote criminal errand goes bloodily awry, the film is briskly told and humidly atmospheric, though a little tonal variation wouldn’t have gone amiss amid an overriding air of hardscrabble, stomach-knotted discomfort. As its central crisis deepens and darkens, Lazraq’s script keeps teasing a gear-shift into mordant farce to which it never quite commits,...
- 5/23/2023
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
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