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Film round-up: August 15, 2024
Inside Afghanistan, Chinese crime thriller, entertaining pants and Alien deja vu: the Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews Hollywoodgate, Only The River Flows, Jackpot! and Alien Romulus
AUDACIOUS: The Taliban enter an abandoned US military base in Ibrahim Nash’at's Hollywoodgate

Hollywoodgate (12A)
Directed by Ibrahim Nash’at

★★★★ 

 
 “WHY is he filming? asks a member of the Taliban. “He is making a documentary… Documenting our everyday lives both civilian and military for a year. If his intentions are bad he will die soon.” Chilling words from a Taliban commander about Egyptian film-maker Ibrahim Nash’at. 

The Taliban agreed to let him film Mawlawi Mansour, the new head of Afghanistan’s air force whose father was killed by US forces, and MJ Mukhtar, a former Taliban fighter now with dreams of an illustrious military career, from the moment US troops left Kabul and Taliban forces took the city on August 31 2021. 

He captures Mansour and his team entering Hollywood Gate, a secret CIA base, and checking what the US left behind.

Only The River Flows (15)
Directed by Wei Shujun

★★★ 


 
Jackpot!
Directed by Paul Feig 

★★★ 

Alien: Romulus (15)
Directed by Fede Alvarez

★★★ 

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