’Alhamour H.A.’: Review

Dir: Abdulelah Alqurashi. Saudia Arabia. 2023. 120mins

There is a strong Wolf Of Wall Street vibe to Alhamour H.A., as director Abdulelah Alqurashi charts the giddy rise and fall of an incorrigible Saudi Arabian hustler. The story arc may be overly familiar but the dynamic approach and a charismatic central performance from newcomer Fahad Alqahtani combine to make for Saudi Arabia’s Oscar submission an entertaining true crime caper. 

An entertaining true crime caper

Alqurashi’s follow up to his debut feature Roll’em (2019) is inspired by true events but opens with the claim that ’the fictional events of this film may appear closer to reality’. At a drug-fuelled gathering, workers battle with soap suds and humiliation as they dive into a makeshift pool to compete for the car key that has been casually tossed in as a prize. Their key-flinging boss is Hamed (Alqahtani); a man at the height of his success, exploiting the rich pickings of the economic boom of the early 2000s. A wry voice-over informs us that “ if you didn’t become a millionaire then, you never would”.

We are thus transported back to where it all began, with the silver-tongued chancer Hamed marrying Fatima (Khairia Abulaban) and heading to Jeddah in the belief that the streets are paved with gold. The reality is a tiny apartment and a job as a security guard that he is lucky to have. Contact with the wealthy residents of a luxury apartment block leaves him with a taste for the high life and a determination to improve his lot. Alqurashi conveys Hamed’s life with fast-paced montages, freeze frames, direct-to-camera asides and a knowing voice-over narration in which Hamed offers his understanding of the world and a desire to improve himself.

Hamed’s brother-in-law is eventually persuaded to employ him in a call centre where ambition and hard work hone his selling skills. A partnership with his friend Soliman (Khaled Yeslam) selling phones and charge cards marks a change in his fortunes. Pushing a wonderful investment opportunity sees the money start rolling in, and Hamed builds an empire that is secure as long as nobody wants the return on the investment or demands their money back.

Alqahtani makes an engaging Hamed, maintaining the air of an innocent in wonderland no matter how nefarious his schemes. He is constantly making himself over to become the man of his dreams. Success for him is marked with a palatial home, fast cars, endless shopping, drug-fuelled parties and a new trophy wife in the steely Jihan (Fatima Albanawi). Female characters are mostly secondary, with Jihan one of the few of any substance. 

Alqurashi maintains the energy of the film with snappy editing and a sense of irony about some of the more bruising moments when Hamed’s empire starts its decline. There is a posse of associates and unreliable lieutenants from the slippery Abbo Azzah (Ismail Alhasan) to loose cannon best buddy Soliman, while cinematographer Egor Povolotskiy relishes the opulent locations; nightclub scenes unfold in a swirling glow of a glitter ball or saturated  in rich, velvety reds and vivid greens.

A day of reckoning is inevitable, and there are interesting undercurrents here about the class divide and the price to be paid for daring to climb the social ladder. Hamed ditches his first wife and dishonours his family, and yet never finds real happiness in a country where the elite always consider him an upstart security guard. Alhamour H.A. never cuts too deeply and the slick, showy style remains paramount, but there is an element of morality tale that is equally as appealing.