It is among many unexpected things in “Furies” that the next great heist film has emerged from Lebanon, joining a grand tradition that includes “Rififi,” “Thief” and “Heat,” but set against the economic turmoil that has beset the country for years, the stakes couldn’t be higher in Rami Kodeih’s galvanizing solo narrative feature debut and the tensions elsewhere are far different than they’ve been before. All Malo (Maria Nakouzi) and her sister Dahlia (Rym Mroueh) want is to reclaim the $18,500 that was in their account, but when the value of the Lebanon pound fell so low in the summer of 2022, banks have frozen their assets, preventing everyone from having access to their savings and when Dahlia requires a life-saving surgery post haste, Malo isn’t about to accept the answer from her local bank manager that their vault is empty, particularly when he’s snacking on a salad as they speak that looks like it would cost a week’s worth of pay for anyone else in these desperate times.
Dahlia actually tells a fry cook to turn off the TV in the back of his kitchen when she goes to get shawarma on her own for her sister and Malo’s young son Ali when nothing good can come from the news, setting the overall tone early for a high-octane thriller that isn’t didactic in the least, but has an extra kick because of its particular historical setting. The Kanso sisters aren’t about to let anyone see them sweat, still ordering 300,000-pound beers if it means a good night out dancing, and make the best of blackouts for Ali, pretending they’re pirates, but even more than Dahlia’s condition, they don’t flinch from a challenge, which seems to be issued when told there is no money at all on the premises of the bank. Soon enough, Malo puts down her scissors as a hair stylist to start reading up on British Bank of Beirut heist in 1976 and uses Ali’s legos to make a model of the bank to practice a potential job. She also has a bit of inside knowledge from being let into the adjoining building where a kindly concierge takes her in after breaking her heel outside the bank and realizes there’s only a thin wall of separation.
Spoiling a frenetic third act would be the only thing that should be considered criminal about what follows as Dahlia and Malo begin plotting a robbery of what’s rightfully theirs, along with the help of Sunshine (Issam Bou Khaled), a beloved old man in the neighborhood who knows all of its comings and goings, and Hamza (Hasan Akil), a volatile twentysomething he has taken under his wing. Something is bound to not go according to plan, but it’s hardly what anyone could guess, leading to an unbearably tense break-in and a car chase that Kodeih stages with the best of them, though the idea of whether a getaway is even possible becomes compelling separate from any physical escape when if Malo and Dahlia somehow elude capture, the psychic toll of the economic conditions they escaped are bound to stay with them forever, no matter how much money they end up with. To the Kansos, what’s one more reckless ride on the streets of Beirut when that feels like that’s how they’ve had to navigate every day of their lives, passing bakeries that can only produce five loaves of bread a day with the shipments of Ukrainian wheat down from the war amongst other indignities faced by a starved public, and going for it, as all involved have on “Furies,” leads to riches beyond anyone’s imagination.
“Furies” will screen again at the Toronto Film Festival at the Scotiabank on September 16th at 9:30 pm and September 18th at 6 pm.