Hounds

Alfred Hitchcock always wanted his audience to know that killing someone was no easy feat. Similarly, with dark dramedy Hounds, director Kamal Lazraq wants us to know just how difficult a kidnapping really is. When mob boss Dib’s (Abdellatif Lebkiri) prized pooch is brutally killed in a dogfight, he is distraught and desperate for revenge. He enlists small-time criminal Hassan (Abdellatif Masstouri) and his son Issam (Ayoub Elaid) to aid him in a kidnap plot, which backfires in the most unexpected way. Before Dib can even exact bloody revenge on his nemesis, he’s already dead, presumably having suffocated after being crammed in Hassan’s car. What ensues is a Coen brothers meets Pulp Fiction-esque crime caper that explores the logistics of getting rid of a dead body.

Unlike Hollywood flicks, which almost always depict the fallout of heinous crimes with relative ease, the blackly comic Hounds takes the viewer through the innumerable bumps – both figurative and literal – entailed in corpse disposal. Amid the absurdity that unfolds, Masstouri and Elaid play it wonderfully straight in their respective roles. Their grisly assignment, occurring over one night, serves as a male bonding ritual of sorts. Meanwhile, the utter disdain that Dib harbours for his hapless henchmen, who are mere dogsbodies for the dogfighting mobster, touches on the exploitation of the underclass. Likewise, the highly proficient Lazraq imbues the film with grittiness and gloom, as father and son are forced to navigate the diverse terrain of Casablanca long into the night.

As a slice of life, it works well, sensitively depicting the penury in which Hassan lives, and his concurrent drive to provide for his family at any cost. Where Hounds falls flat, however, is in its comedy, which is perhaps too deadpan for its own good. The film could have benefited from embracing more madcap set pieces; instead, it meanders in places that should have been fertile ground for outright farce.

Despite some bumps along the way, Hounds takes viewers on a journey full of moreish twists and turns – with a profoundly macabre resolution that’s worth waiting for.

Antonia Georgiou

Hounds is released in select cinemas on 14^th June 2024.

Watch the trailer for Hounds here: