Baghdad In My Shadow

There's a lot going on in this thriller about the Iraqi diaspora in London - both in terms of narrative content and filmmaking bells and whistles - which sees events recounted in flashback via the framing mechanism of a police interview. But if things get complicated quickly, it's to director Samir's credit - himself Iraqi born and now based in Switzerland - that he and his co-writer Furat al Jamil succeed in creating a number of well-rounded memorable characters, who anchor the less believable elements of the story.

Chief among them is Taufiq (Haytham Abdulrazaq), who was once a part of the underground movement against Saddam Hussein in Iraq and bears the scars to prove it. Now, an ageing poet, he lives a largely gentle existence in London, where he socialises with many other migrants from Iraq at the left-leaning Abu Nawas café run by his contemporary Zeki (Kae Bahar). Among Zeki's staff are his son Aro (Taro Bahar) and Amal (Zahraa Ghandour, in a soulful performance), who is actually an architect by trade but, like so many migres, unable to work in a foreign country without the relevant paperwork.

Also popping in is Taufiq's nephew Naseer (Shervin Alenabi), who, we quickly learn, is falling under the radical influence of a firebrand preacher at a local mosque, and Muhannad (Waseem Abbas), a young IT nerd who, despite facing ingrained prejudice for being gay - a fact he keeps to himself but which is pretty much an open secret - is called upon to fix anything that breaks.

The action is recalled by Taufiq, arrested at the start of the film, whose interview with a range of officers (among them Kerry Fox) punctuates the story. Samir is determined to take on a large number of the challenges facing the ex-pat community, from women's and gay rights to radicalisation and conflict between the Sunni and Shia communities. And, as if that might not be enough to fill an entire Netflix series, he wraps the whole lot in the thriller element, courtesy of Amal's husband (possibly ex) (Ali Daim Mailiki), who turns up as the Iraqi cultural attache despite a dark history of his own and wastes no time in getting cahoots with the dodgy preacher and menacing Amal.

The sheer weight of all of this means the material might have been better served on television where the ideas it is crammed with could have been unpacked a bit. It would also have been more forgiving of the film's more serendipitous moments and its tendency to drift towards melodrama. The 'bad guys', in particular, suffer from being broadly drawn - although Daim Mailiki does a good line in gimlet-eyed evil. Elsewhere, however, Samir shows care in tackling complex issues, including the way that Nasseer is torn between a belief in family and his newly burning faith and the fact that Amal is held back in a tentative relationship with Londoner Martin (TV regular Andrew Buchan) as much by herself as her community. The character of Martin also allows the writers to explore how migrants can suffer from being treated as a homogeneous lump by those in the country they move to.

Cinematographers Alfredo de Juan and The Chau Ngo help us to keep track of proceedings by capturing the blue dampness of London in contrast to the warmth of the Iraq flashbacks and the clinical vibe of police interview room, while the music by Tom Linden and Walter Mair has an enjoyably jazz-inflected film noir feel. The supporting cast - in particular Awatif Naeem and singer Hazel O'Connor, - also deserve credit. Samir should think about turning his hand to a television show, if he was to bring even half the ideas to it that are contained in this film, it could run and run.