Cairo Conspiracy

Refreshingly, the Swedish-born director opts against picking from the low-hanging fruit of indicting Islam and hones in on the fallibility of human nature and our weakness for earthly desires instead.

You could argue that it’s a little unlikely that the security forces should choose such a naive young man as Adam to do their inside work, but once you accept that notion then the film – actually made in Turkey – is a very effective thriller.

The film’s biggest coup is the common thread it finds in both worlds: military back rooms and holy offices alike filled with the ambitious jostling for position.

It is an engrossing tale, full of betrayal and chicanery, and it casts the Egyptian political-military complex and the religious hierarchy as riddled with corruption.

The uncomfortably thin veil between religion and politics is intriguingly lifted in Tarik Saleh’s “Cairo Conspiracy,” a low-key fictional thriller set at Egypt’s prestigious Al-Azhar University.

“Cairo Conspiracy” is a measured but unsparing portrait of corruption perpetrated by people who, across the board, are utterly confident of their own rectitude.

Rife with paranoia and subterfuge, Cairo Conspiracy feels utterly unique thanks to [its] skillful transposing of the shadowy machinations of courtly intrigue dramas and '70s paranoid thrillers into a very contemporary Egyptian setting.

Saleh’s film works on many more levels than sociopolitical, delivering a sophisticated adult thriller while at the same time exploring the intense psychological dynamic of the relationship between Adam and Ibrahim.

A great crime thriller that takes the audience into a world that they will seldom see.

This conspiracy tale of unholy deeds will grip and rattle.