Movie Review

Riz Ahmed confronts his health and heritage in Mogul Mowgli

Riz Ahmed in Mogul Mowgli.

Photo courtesy of Strand Releasing

Actor/writer/producer Riz Ahmed has had a long road toward success. After spending years as a rapper under the name Riz MC and working in smaller productions, he finally broke out in 2014’s Nightcrawler, followed shortly by his Emmy-winning role in HBO’s The Night Of in 2016 and his Oscar-nominated role in 2020’s Sound of Metal.

Now, he’s back with his most personal role yet in Mogul Mowgli.

Ahmed plays Zed (Riz Ahmed), a British Pakistani rapper who’s gained a nice following because of his highly political songs about his heritage and Muslims in general. With a European tour looming with another big rapper, he seems about ready for his breakout moment. But on a visit back home with his parents, he starts experiencing muscle weakness, leading him to a diagnosis that may derail his whole career before it even gets started.

Written by Ahmed and Bassam Tariq and directed by Tariq, the film takes on a surreal quality as Zed starts to deteriorate mentally, having a series of hallucinations and dreams. Even in his lucid moments, Zed starts to question much about his life, including his commitment to his faith, his Pakistani heritage, his influence on other rappers, and whether him choosing rap for a career is cultural appropriation.

Even before his health issues crop up, Zed is having identity issues. At a family dinner and in a chance meeting with a fan, Zed is called out for being somewhat estranged from his heritage. He goes by Zed, not his real name of Zaheer, to better fit in with the rest of society, and he has fallen out of practice with Muslim customs, alienating some despite the obvious connections in his songs.

The film is unapologetic about immersing itself in Pakistani/Muslim culture with little to no explanation for other audiences. They drop a number of Islamic terms like sunnah, haram, makruh, and bismillah without giving anything other than some context clues. Zed also has a song called “Toba Tek Singh” that many viewers wouldn’t know was a city in Pakistan unless they looked it up. Even the title of the film goes unexplained; for the record, it’s from a song by Riz MC’s group Swet Shop Boys that contrasts different sides of their identity.

Ahmed obviously took much inspiration from being a real-life rapper, as the wordplay of Zed’s songs is fantastic. However, the speed of his rapping and the unfamiliar references he uses could result in confusion for some viewers. A screener had subtitles that greatly aided my comprehension, but theater moviegoers may not be so lucky.

In a quirk of fate/scheduling, Ahmed has released two movies in a row where he plays a musician with a health condition that prevents him from pursuing his music. While the characters and their conditions are much different, the mental anguish that each goes through is similar. For my money, Ahmed’s performance in Sound of Metal had a bigger impact, but anyone who sees Mogul Mowgli first might disagree.

Mogul Mowgli will be a different kind of movie experience for many viewers thanks to its very specific cultural references and symbolism. But at its core it’s about things to which everyone can relate like family, self-doubt, and more, making it a universal story.

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Mogul Mowgli is playing at Alamo Drafthouse LaCenterra.

Movie Review

Safe cracking takes center stage in new heist movie Tuner

Leo Woodall in Tuner

Photo courtesy of Black Bear

Leo Woodall in Tuner.

Of all the ways that movies depict people trying to steal money and other valuables, safe cracking is among the least exciting. By design, it’s a laborious process that only those with a very certain set of skills can do. While clever editing and the right music can enhance scenes of safes being cracked, there’s a reason that the method is among the least used in heist films.

In the new film Tuner, Niki (Leo Woodall) has a job and a condition that just happens to lend itself well to committing that specific crime. He works as an apprentice piano tuner for Harry (Dustin Hoffman), usually doing the hard work while Harry schmoozes the client. Niki is well-suited for the job because he has a rare condition called hyperacusis, which makes him both sensitive to loud noises and able to hear subtle things that others cannot.

When he runs across a trio of criminals trying to break open a safe at a house where he’s tuning a piano, he helps them more out of frustration than avarice. But when Harry goes into the hospital and racks up huge bills, Niki decides to join the group to make some quick money. They soon want more than he’s willing to give, and he must find a way to extricate himself from them without losing himself completely.

Written and directed by documentary filmmaker Daniel Roher (making his narrative feature debut) and co-written by Robert Ramsey, the film has a nice pace to it despite there being relatively little action. Roher and Ramsey spend the first third or so establishing Niki, Harry, and Harry’s wife Marla (Tovah Feldshuh) as characters, letting the audience understand their relationships and how they interact with each other.

The time they devote to the personal storytelling pays dividends when Niki starts to descend into crime, as his divided loyalties — not to mention the danger of the thefts — insert tension into the plot. That stress is heightened even more when Niki starts a relationship with piano student Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu), as getting closer to her necessitates a series of lies.

There comes a point, though, where the plot stagnates to a degree. Niki’s end goal, if he has one, is never clear, and it’s obvious that it’s only a matter of time before things start to fall apart. After starting strong in their character development, Roher and Ramsey take shortcuts as the film rushes toward its conclusion. This is most notable in a weird argument scene between Niki and Ruthie that comes out of nowhere and seems to serve no purpose in the story.

Woodall, who had a memorable turn in season 2 of The White Lotus, is on the cusp of breaking out, and this understated-but-compelling lead role should help him become an even bigger name in Hollywood. Hoffman has a small role, but he remains as interesting as ever despite the lack of screentime. Liu (Bottoms) is also an up-and-coming actor who should become a star with more roles like this one.

Tuner is a low-key thriller that succeeds because of the way the filmmakers approach the under-used method of robbery. Even if it doesn’t quite reach its potential, the film maintains a high quality throughout thanks to its storytelling and acting.

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Tuner is now playing in theaters.

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