Tito (2004)
★★½ — Tito (2004)
Tito arrived in 2004 as part of a modest but self-conscious new wave in Egyptian commercial cinema, riding the momentum generated by Sherif Arafa's Mafia (2002), which had introduced a more stylised, genre-conscious approach to Egyptian action filmmaking. Director Tarek Al-Aryan was working in that same tradition, crafting a crime drama built around the familiar ex-con-trying-to-go-straight premise that has driven pulpy genre pictures from Hollywood to Hong Kong for decades. Ahmed Al-Saqqa, one of Egypt's most bankable leading men at the time, anchors the film alongside Hanan Turk and Amr Waked (who would later become familiar to Western audiences through films like Syriana and Salmon Fishing in the Yemen). The production sits squarely within Egypt's Cairo-based mainstream film industry, which during the early 2000s was actively experimenting with genre hybridisation, blending local melodramatic sensibilities with the aesthetics of international action cinema.
A-Z World Movie Tour Egypt What do you get if you cross Bollywood with Latin American Soap Operas? Tito. This movie was a beautifully entertaining complete mess. The acting and the writing (or at least the translations) were really melodramatic and the story was just all over the place. At one point they literally demolished a restaurant using a bulldozer. The soundtrack was really good and suspenseful, especially during the action scenes. The action scenes were the highlight of the movie. There was way too many long dialogue scenes between the action scenes. The car chases in particular were SO Bollywood. We're talking car explosions, ramps, crashing through streets etc... all while looking cool shooting out the window. In the end a 2.5* is fair because although it had some weird elements, the action scenes were still pretty good. Ending didn't really make sense.
Rating: ★★½ | Year: 2004 | Watched: 2025-06-12
Related on Movies With Macca
More from Egypt: Cairo Station (1958)
More from the 2000s: Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005) · Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) · Daredevil (2003) · Apocalypto (2006)
More drama: Viy (1967) · Wonder (2017) · A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Beautiful Boy (2018)
More crime: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Angst (1983) · Stolen Face (1952) · Cairo Station (1958)
