Name: Help
Genre: Drama
Duration: 1 h 30 min
Rating: 5.9
Cast: Hussein Maatouk, Johanna Andraos, Khalil El Zein

Chaotic, poorly-acted film that was banned in Lebanon for reasons we can only speculate about. It could have been because of the interminable nude scenes, the gay character, the fact that the lead actress is the daughter of a prominent Lebanese MP or a combination of the above.

In the end, the film was leaked from the Ministry of censorship and copied onto DVD to be sold on the streets for a fraction of the price of a cinema ticket thus serving as a warning to the director that he could be doubly screwed - banned and at the same time deprived of royalties from the thousands of people who ended up watching the film.

I saw it all the way through on a copy of the DVD particularly because it was Lebanese and tackling subjects rarely spoken about in Arabic-speaking countries. However, it really was a mess and had it been a European film, I might well have switched off.

Full marks for trying and this was the director's first film. Unfortunately it shows.

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