South Terminal

Set in a (possibly fictional) unnamed country, South Terminal follows a physician (Ramzy Bedia) as he’s caught between warring factions after he’s kidnapped and forced to save the life of a fighter. Filmmaker Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche delivers a strong opening that’s ultimately not at all indicative of the hopelessly tedious production that succeeds it, as Ameur-Zaïmeche, working from his own screenplay, delivers a meandering, unfocused narrative that contains few (if any) compelling elements – with the arms length vibe compounded by Ameur-Zaïmeche’s emphasis on aggressively pointless sequences (eg a long, interminable wake for a character we’ve barely gotten to know). And although the picture does threaten to improve once the aforementioned kidnapping rolls around, South Terminal eventually progresses into a long, drawn-out third act that makes one wish that Ameur-Zaïmeche would just get on with it, already. (And it doesn’t help, certainly, that Ameur-Zaïmeche’s sloppy direction obscures the impact and coherence of several key moments.) The laughably vague and underwhelming final shot only confirms South Terminal‘s place as a seriously incompetent piece of work, and it’s impossible not to wonder what Ameur-Zaïmeche initially set out to accomplish with this mess.

* out of ****