Ahmed Hatem
صلاح
Overview
After his father passes away, Salah returns from America to receive his inheritance, and seeks to sell the property that includes a football club, which lands him in many unexpected situations.
Cast
12 people
Reviews
5 min readThe Inheritance Game: Comedy, Chaos, and the Weight of a Football Club
I’ll admit it: I went into The Fugitives expecting a light, breezy comedy about an heir returning home to sell off his father’s dusty old football club. What I got instead was a film that feels like it’s constantly tripping over its own shoelaces—sometimes in a way that’s endearing, sometimes in a way that’s just frustrating. The premise is simple enough: Salah (Ahmed Hatem), fresh off a plane from America, arrives in Egypt to claim his inheritance, only to find that his father’s assets include a struggling football club.
What follows, according to the synopsis, are "many unexpected situations." That’s putting it mildly. The film lurches from one comedic set piece to another, like a pinball ricocheting between bumpers, never quite settling into a rhythm.
The first act sets up a promising clash of cultures. Salah, with his Americanized sensibilities, is the proverbial fish out of water, and the film leans into this with a few genuinely funny moments. There’s a scene early on where he tries to navigate a bustling Cairo street, his Westernized impatience clashing with the unhurried chaos of local life.
It’s the kind of fish-out-of-water humor that could have been mined for deeper laughs, but the film never quite commits to it. Instead, it veers into broader, more slapstick territory, as if unsure whether it wants to be a satire of cultural differences or just a farce about a man in over his head.
Yasser Samy, the director, has a knack for visual comedy—there’s a particular scene where Salah attempts to assert authority over the football club’s unruly staff, only to have his plans unravel in real time. The camera lingers on his face as he realizes he’s been outmaneuvered, and for a moment, it’s almost The Office meets Egyptian bureaucracy. Almost.
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsThey remade 424, taunted Hassan Shehata, then Netflix filed it as The Fugitives
English menus call Yasser Samy's 2023 comedy The Fugitives. The Arabic title is Al Matarid. Ahmed Hatem plays Salah, who flies back from America after his father dies, then tries to unload the estate, football club included. Tara Emad is Farida. Eyad Nassar is Adham. Salah El Geheiny and Ezzat Amin wrote it. TMDB logs 1 hour 40 minutes and a US listing of February 10, 2023. Wikipedia treats it as a comedy, not a chase picture. The same page lists Dollar Film for domestic distribution and Orient Films abroad, plus a producer stack that includes Synergy, Magic Beans, latestnetflix.com contends, and Misr International. The club in the plot is the joke. The English title sounds like a manhunt.,
The marketing was a football punchline. Al-Masry Al-Youm reported the official promo in January 2023, after Samy finished post-production and graphics, and noted the story tracks the older film 424 with Saeed Saleh and Younes Shalaby. The poster line was that no lineup was stronger to restore Al Matarid's glory. Hatem's earlier teaser dared Hassan Shehata. On screen he says the former Egypt coach never assembled a team like the one in front of him. On Instagram he wrote that the World Cup was over and Egyptian League fun was starting, with the film in cinemas January 25.
Youm7 counted the theatrical run. After 37 days the film had 5.5 million Egyptian pounds. It opened January 25 into the mid-year school holiday. Week one took 2.28 million, then 1.25 million, 885,000, 550,000, and 450,000. Hatem sat with Mona El Shazly on Maakom and said he had been a gifted footballer and remains a Zamalek obsessive. He also said 2022 only saw one of his films released, even though several were already shot and delayed. Tara Emad told the same show the movie has a special place for her. She liked the scenes with Hatem. She also admitted she is not a football obsessive, though she watched the World Cup.
Netflix later carried the English title in the US catalog, with Shahid VIP still in the mix on JustWatch. Hatem used the press tour to list three finished films waiting behind it, including the retitled Yahya. The sourced story is a mid-tier comedy remake that peaked in the midyear window, then sat on streaming under a name that promises fugitives. The team on the poster was the sell. The box office was a slow fade after week one.,
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.
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