21/6/2025–|Last update: 17:40 (Mecca time)
“Restart” opened with a movie “Project X” Weather Film summer Al -Masry for this year, to be dependent on two Eid al -Adha films, despite their presentation shortly before the Eid, in light of the delay in the presentation of several other Egyptian films distributed over the coming summer months, such as “Darwish”, “Ahmed and Ahmed”.
“Restart” starring Tamer Hosni, Hana Al -Zahid, Mohamed Tharwat, in the name of Samra, directed by Sarah Wafik, and written by Ayman Bahjat Qamar. Tamer Hosni’s last movie was “Taj” in 2023, which was also directed by Sarah Wafik.
Planting from social media
The movie “Restart” begins with its main characters in a specific social environment, as we get to know 3 poor families living in adjacent and connected apartments, which are similar to the extended family. Among them is Muhammad (Tamer Hosni), an engineer who does not work in his field and is satisfied with modest jobs, gathered by an emotional relationship with Afaf (here Zahid), who was working in a beauty salon before she went to trade women’s clothing through an account on one of the communication sites.
Events develop when Muhammad is called for a ceremony honoring the owners of “distinctive ideas”, without any clarification of the organizer or selection standards. Afaf accompanies him, hoping that his idea will contribute to achieving social solidarity through donations – an idea that the film shows as if it is an exceptional achievement – to changing his fate. But soon he discovers that just having a good idea is not enough. The prizes go to those who have wide fame on the communication sites, not for those who seek realistic solutions to their daily problems, including the dream of marrying the beloved.
Muhammad returns to his home, and Afaf and the rest of the family members decided to spread on the communication sites in any way and draw attention, even if it is negatively, which they succeed in and attract the attention of the Joker (in the name of Samra), and he is responsible for a company to exploit the celebrities of the communication sites. The Joker appears from the first sight as if it was the devil, who swore the heroes of the story for their souls, so they must obey him without discussion, and in return they will receive the wealth that they dreamed of for a long time.
Muhammad resists the Joker and attacks Afaf and the rest of the family to agree to work with him, but in the next minute he agrees to work with him, and begins to implement everything that is required of him without discussion, even if the orders are ridiculous, humiliating or illogical, so he gradually loses his respect for himself.
“Restart” dedicates the ideas of the middle and upper class about the poor use of communication sites for material and economic promotion, as these marginalized because of the “trigger” turns into famous and rich very quickly. However, from the point of view of this layer, they turn into a mutation that does not care about any values for this quick wealth, while growth on these sites in a natural way requires a lot of time and effort, which makes them frustrated, and it is similar in the end a class and social jealousy.
Muhammad and his friends resort to communication sites as a quick solution to wealth, which leads them to lose their identity and their respect for themselves, so they return to poverty, young, with a clear speech about the hatred of this type of wealth, which is very similar to the cinematic discourse in the pre -1952 period, which urged the poor to enjoy their poverty and not to seek wealth, because wealth comes with him many responsibilities or calamities, as in Films like “If I were Rich”, produced by 1942.
A movie that is not saved by Tamer Hosni
“Restart” adopts a moral message or idea, about the way social media controls the influencers and changes their lives for the worst, contrary to what they expect. This idea becomes a road map for the film, as soon as it moves away from it, it returns to it again. However, the filmmakers neglected many of the necessary details, on top of which is building characters and the logic of their actions.
The characters of “Restart” are very simplified, as Muhammad is a young man who is a struggle, the chastity of an ambitious girl, and Ala (Muhammad Tharwat) with a weak personality that is easy to influence, and the Joker is an exploited evil villain that does not take into account moral criteria, and so with the rest of the secondary characters.
The main motivation of all these characters is the search for rapid wealth, which is the natural thing in this context. However, the main character – that is, Muhammad – is in particular a lack of its own logic. For example, Muhammad initially refuses to deal with the Joker, and strikes his fiancée on the street when he knows that she signs the contract with him, then in the next scene directly signs the contract, without clarifying the reason behind this change, and this matter is repeated several times throughout the movie.
While the film goes towards criticizing the pursuit of fame on the communication sites, it suddenly changes its compass, and pushes its hero to try to cut off the Internet in the world, and the accompanying catastrophic results, to present about a third of an hour without a real identity, is the film in the interest of the Internet or against it, or only those scenes to fill the work void and not to develop his characters or his love? Indeed, Joker himself, the film’s villain, is acquitted by the film of the charge of sexual exploitation in the last moments for incomprehensible reasons.
In addition to this chaos in authorship and directing, we find a very modest acting performance, and songs that are used in an inconsistent manner with events, but only contribute to the promotion of the film, given that his hero is one of the most famous and popular Egyptian singers in the current era.
“Restart” is ranked second in Egyptian cinema revenues after the “project X”, and it seems that it will not exceed it soon, to prove that the action films are still the preferred type of the public, even if the hero of the film is Tamer Hosni. Despite the faults of the artistic movie “The Project X”, its makers have been sincere in its details, despite their shortcomings in some places.