Law of Tehran
A tenacious cop squares up against a drug lord in Saeed Roustayee’s award-winning action-thriller from Iran.
We have here an Iranian film quite different from any other that we have seen from that country. It is the work of writer/director Saeed Roustayee and is in fact his second feature. When the film was first given an English title, it was known as Just 6.5, that being a reference to the fact that the number of drug users in Iran was said to have grown to 6.5 million. It was that situation and his response to it that drove Saeed Roustayee to make this film which, in addition to winning awards, has been a huge box office hit in Iran. What has led to this is Roustayee’s decision to take on Hollywood at its own game for Law of Tehran, as it is now known, is a cop movie incorporating many action scenes and causing some critics to find in it echoes of the 1971 classic The French Connection.
This aspect is apparent from the very start which features a police raid, one that quickly leads to a tense chase sequence which finds the leading detective, Samad Majidi (Payman Maadi), pursuing a drug user who is running away. The manner in which Roustayee directs this sequence immediately establishes his skills in this field and it is topped by what is a very effective pay-off. From that point on Law of Tehran gets down to showing the tenacious way in which Samad and his team, among them his close colleague Hamid (Houman Kiai), seek to track down a big-shot drug provider. The route to establishing his identity involves putting pressure on dealers and middle men, thus finding a way to work up to cornering this man who turns out to be one Naser Khakzad (Navid Mohammedzadeh).
Throughout this first half of Law of Tehran the action continues to flow (several police raids are part of it) and, if the tale albeit usually encountered in other settings is by no means unfamiliar, it is all handled with panache at a suitably quick tempo. The impact is all the greater because there are strong performances from both lead actors, Payman Maadi already known to us from A Separation (2011) bringing a strong presence to the role of Samad and Navid Mohammadzadeh hardly less effective as the crime lord who comes to dominate the second half of the film (indeed it was Mohammadzadeh who carried off the best actor award at the 2019 Tokyo Film Festival where this film won the Best Director award too).
Furthermore, while the film initially presents itself as a thriller portraying the mission of the police to overcome the huge drug problem, it also balances that out in other ways. To start with there is the unease that we feel when we see Samad applying threats and intimidation to get the information that he needs (one of the best scenes shows how Naser’s former girlfriend, quite admirably played by Parinaz Izadyar, is pressurised into revealing where Naser can be found). Once seized by the police Naser is ready to pull any strings to be released and is willing to give Samad a huge bribe to further that. We have already seen that Samad is ready to impose on Hamid in order to protect his own position and consequently, for its first half at least, Law of Tehran keeps up the tension while simultaneously allowing us to see that Samad is not all good and Naser not all bad. What we observe of the lives of the poor and the overcrowded conditions of the police cells adds to this wider picture.
In the last third or so of Law of Tehran the emphasis on the social issues comes to seem more overt as the narrative deals with the Naser’s imprisonment and ultimate fate and moves away from the action sequences that have played so tellingly up to then. This is not a bad thing in itself even if those viewers who have bought into this film as an action movie-cum-police procedural may feel a bit let down. Certainly, it is the later sequences that emphasise how Iranian law with its application of the death sentence to anyone caught dealing in drugs may well have unwittingly led to dealers taking bigger risks because the penalty applies at all levels. Other elements show ways in which those involved can be victims, ranging from a young boy (Yusef Khosravi) forced into dealing by his father (Asghar Piran) to the explanation by Naser himself as to how his actions have been driven by a desire to help his family who will now suffer because of him. But, while all this is valid, it does at times feel as though too much has been pressed in rendering the film top-heavy on occasion and making it harder than one would wish to take in all the details. As an example of a film that moved from being a drama about a police investigation to become a study of the society in which it was set (also Iran as it happens), I felt that Ali Abbasi’s Holy Spider more successfully encompassed both aspects. But much here is impressive including both the acting and the way in which Law of Tehran is a calling card for Saeed Roustayee as a director who, when handling action scenes, can equal Hollywood's best.
Original title: Metro shesh-o Nim.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Payman Maadi, Navid Mohammadzadeh, Parinaz Izadyar, Farhad Aslani, Houman Kiai, Maziar Seyedi, Ali Bagheri, Marjan Ghamari, Yusef Khosravi, Amirhossein Mirchi, Mehdi Hoseini-nia.
Dir Saeed Roustayee, Pro Jamal Sadatian, Mohammad Sadegh Ranjkeshan and Shabab Shafiei, Screenplay Saeed Roustayee, Ph Hooman Behmanesh, Pro Des Mohsen Nasrollahi, Ed Bahram Dehghani, Music Peyman Yazdanian, Costumes Ghazale Motamed.
Boshra Film/HA International-Vertigo Films.
134 mins. Iran. 2019. UK Rel: 31 March 2023 Cert. 15.
