Mohammed Aldokhei
Sattam
Overview
Failed entrepreneur and struggling dad Sattam finds himself tangled in a madcap scheme when he decides to repay his debts — by kidnapping his own father.
Cast
7 people
Reviews
3 min readThe Architecture of a Bad Idea
There’s a special kind of fatigue that comes from trying, every waking second, to look like your life is under control. You can see it right behind the eyes—the sort of strain that drags a smile downward while it’s still trying to stay polite. In The Fakenapping, Amine Lakhnech’s unruly 2025 addition to the growing pile of Saudi Netflix comedies, Mohammed Aldokhei wears that fatigue like a suit that doesn’t fit anymore.
He plays Sattam, a struggling businessman and anxious father who decides the best fix for his debts is to kidnap his own stingy father. It’s idiotic. It’s doomed.
And the movie wrings a surprising amount of scruffy affection out of watching the plan collapse.
Lakhnech, working with Telfaz11 in Riyadh, has no interest in making a clean, efficient heist picture. The vibe is closer to a local Fargo filtered through the conversational looseness of a Saudi majlis. But where the Coens drift toward bleakness, Lakhnech chases absurdity.
The would-be kidnappers aren’t dangerous professionals; they’re bumbling friends who end up asking their hostage what he thinks of their haircuts and sticking him in a bright red Michael Jordan jersey. The comedy comes from crime constantly being interrupted by the ordinary, the petty, and the weirdly courteous.
The movie’s style stays in step with Sattam’s nerves. Lakhnech uses a brisk, slightly twitchy camera and keeps returning to frame-within-a-frame shots—conversations glimpsed through openings, including one staged from inside a safe—that make Sattam look boxed in by the lies he keeps stacking up. Riyadh’s neon-lit modern streets give the whole thing a restless late-night sheen as Sattam tries to maintain the illusion of prosperity for his mother and young daughter while a loan shark tightens the screws.
Audience Opinions
Audience 4.9/10
"A promising kidnap-caper idea dragged down by weak writing, flat jokes, and pacing issues that even likable leads struggle to save."
Performances from Mohammed Aldokhei and other leads earn respect, with several comments singling out their charisma and wishing they had stronger material, and there is some appreciation for the colorful visual look and a late twist that reframes the money plot. At the same time, many find the story derivative, the humor ineffective, and the pacing slow or aimless, with some saying they could not finish the film or regretted the first hour despite liking parts of the ending.
What viewers praise
- Engaging lead actors Mohammed Aldokhei and Yazeed Almajyul are frequently praised as talented and watchable, with some wishing they chose projects that match their abilities.
- Colorful visual palette The look of the film, especially its colors, is described as attractive and one of the most enjoyable aspects of the experience.
- Entertaining final act The last stretch, including the reveal about where the money really went, is cited as more exciting and even one of the better endings in recent Saudi films.
- Light, easy tone A minority of comments describe it as a quick, lightweight watch that is not as bad as its harshest ratings imply.
Common complaints
- Weak comedy The film is often called silly rather than funny, with some questioning why it is labeled a comedy when very few jokes land.
- Slow, aimless pacing Several viewers find the plot boring and directionless, saying events move slowly with little suspense and that they struggled or refused to finish.
- Unoriginal storyline The kidnapping plot is criticized as clichéd and even directly compared to well-known crime shows, with accusations of borrowing scenes without adding new ideas.
- Disappointing execution Comments describe the film as a low-value commercial product with chaotic or careless direction that wastes an interesting premise.
- Uneven tone Shifts in style, including a finale that feels like it suddenly changes into a different kind of movie, are noted as jarring and contribute to a sense of inconsistency.
Recommended for
Saudi comedy completists Mohammed Aldokhei followers Curious Netflix caper viewers Light crime-comedy dabblers
Full Plot (Spoilers)
Spoiler warning
This section contains the full plot, including major story reveals. Overview above stays spoiler-free.
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsA bird mask walked the Jeddah carpet
Mohammed Aldokhei carried a bird mask down the Red Sea red carpet. Photographers also caught a brown suitcase left on its own, as if the plot had started without the actors. Hia magazine logged both props on 7 December 2025, a day after the festival screening at Culture Square in Jeddah and four days before Netflix. The magazine says the mask opens the film. The suitcase closes it. 
,
Netflix sold the comedy in English as The Fakenapping. The Arabic title is Rahin. Telfaz11 produced. Tunisian director Amine Lakhnech made his first feature. Ahmad Amer and Abdulaziz Alessa wrote it. TMDB lists a 1 hour 25 minute comedy, US date 11 December 2025, original language Arabic. Hia clocks 85 minutes, all of them in Riyadh. , [1]
The striker with the pistol
The Saudi-press buzz is Saeed Al-Owairan. The 1994 World Cup forward plays Abu Atiq, a gang boss, in his first screen role. E3lam's 4 November notice set the Netflix date and listed him as a guest star. Okaz, after launch, ran a clip of him with a pistol, threatening a father and son for money against the hostage. The paper also said cinemas would pick it up from 14 December while the platform already had it. ,
The Red Sea program copy is meaner than the English logline. Sattam is a young man with every venture failed. He is about to lose his home to ruthless Abu Ateeq. He hatches a plan to squeeze money from his wealthy, notoriously stingy father. Hia fills in the household. Wealthy father dodging tax. Sattam is the divorced son raising a daughter, 250,000 riyals in debt to violent men. His brother is idle. The brother's wife wants the inheritance early. The father's assistant wants an end-of-service payout. Sattam's idea, Hia writes, is a plan borrowed from foreign movies. The fake crew is amateur. The father slips. Hia called the ending fast and happy for Sattam, with the father realizing he had lost money that was never his. [2], [1]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS2qdsxVAcQ
Decider's Radhika Menon watched the Netflix cut and said STREAM IT. She called it a silly comedy of errors. Sattam hires a friend to kidnap the father. Yazeed Almajyul, as the hired man, becomes a foil who realizes he holds the power. Menon compared the absurdist vibe to Four Samosas, an amateur jewelry heist gone wrong. She wanted more of why the family already treats Sattam as an outcast. She still took the hijinks. Aldokhei is the Night Courier star carrying another Saudi comedy that wants to look like a family argument, not a heist. The official trailer is on Netflix's YouTube. , [7]
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.
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