At some point in 2017, driven either by an unknown ambition or the desire for a quick tax write-off, director Ahmed Siddiqui decided that the world really needed a Kuwaiti version of Back to the Future. IMDb’s summarizes the plot of Back to Q82 as: “a Kuwaiti version of the iconic movie Back to the Future.” That’s it. Not much more information exists on the internet or otherwise to illuminate why, or indeed how, Back to Q82 was made. There are no official reviews for the film, no articles about it online concerning production or budget. And yet, deep within the bowels of Netflix, where few have dared to tread, it exists.
Robert Zemeckis’ original Back to the Future is an undisputed ‘80s classic. It made an instant star of Michael J. Fox and created Christopher Lloyd’s most enduring role in Dr. Emmett Brown. Granted, some plot details stand out today as slightly odd (remember the Libyans?), but it nevertheless remains an example of Hollywood movie magic operating at its nostalgic peak. It would stand to reason, then, that someone would want to rip it off. What’s so puzzling about Back to Q82 is that, other than a misleading poster that copies the original’s iconic font, the actual cinematic product is essentially a different story altogether.
Back to Q82 opens on a convoluted and crude sequence involving a man asking for gas, and then getting carjacked by another man with dwarfism when he doesn’t present enough money for the favor. After this seemingly irrelevant introduction (the battered man actually does get reintroduced later, along with a “remember this guy?” title card), we’re treated to a comic book-style montage of our main cast, and then thrust into an additional 105 minutes of what only generously could be described as a “loose narrative.” The main characters are Ahmed (Abdel Aziz El Nassar) and Aziz (Khalid Muthafar), best friends who stumble upon a DeLorean-style time machine when they follow the former’s crush, Dana (Amal Al Anbari) home from school. Dana is the daughter of a scientist (Abdul Imam Abdullah) and has decided to go back in time to fix her parents’ marriage. When she gets stuck in 1982, the scientist is accused of causing her disappearance and enlists the help of the dimwitted Ahmed and Aziz to get her back.
Dana isn’t the main protagonist, but she should be. In the original Back to the Future, Marty McFly’s ultimate motivation is to ensure his parents get together, preserving his own existence and improving their present lives by fixing past mistakes. In Back to Q82, Dana’s mission to prevent a life-altering divorce is immediately obfuscated, serving only to make her a damsel in distress. For the majority of the runtime, we follow Ahmed and Aziz’s obnoxious duo as they bumble around 1982 with no sense of stakes, initiative or purpose. They visit Ahmed’s long-deceased grandfather, but the experience of seeing him alive generates no emotional impact, and instead there are interactions with various characters who have zero relation to the plot. Of the two, Ahmed is an especially irritating character, whose grating vocal delivery renders most of the dialogue actively difficult to listen to. It’s not clear what stake they have in the mission or whether they even care about it, meaning any excitement or intrigue you could possibly get from the premise is nonexistent.
This concerted lack of effort extends to the production design as well. Gone is the iconic DeLorean time machine of Back to the Future, instead replaced with, well, a basic car. Once in 1982, very little is done to portray the time period as any different than the present. Background characters wear slightly older fashion, and there is a brief discussion of different bank notes. Otherwise, the clashing time periods are granted no distinct visual presentation and adhere to inconsistent logic. Ahmed and Aziz’s use of an iPhone, for instance, generates very little fanfare until inexplicably stunning a minor antagonist so badly she immediately faints. The rest is filler, devoted to Ahmed and Aziz encountering various Kuwaiti celebrities in childhood or pre-success, references that admittedly may play better for a Kuwaiti audience. But cultural disconnect aside, there’s just nothing compelling to see here. It’s neither entertaining, nor thrilling, nor even particularly funny in an ironic sense. The final scene cheekily teases another time traveling adventure, but the only thing you’ll want to do is go back to a moment before you decided to watch this terrible movie.
So, the only question that remains is: why? Why does this exist? Hollywood and American films have had a long and deep-seated impact on the Kuwaiti film industry. The first feature film produced in Kuwait was in 1972, and American movies have long dominated the cinemas and box office. Perhaps Back to Q82 was an attempt to capitalize on that interest by recreating one of the most famous Hollywood films of that era through a Kuwaiti lens. It’s not an inherently awful idea, especially since the act of “reclaiming” a Hollywood movie in this context could be an interesting statement, but the film is executed so cheaply and ineptly that it feels closer to an Asylum knockoff than a real movie. To be fair, lack of funding and exposure remains an issue for professional filmmaking in Kuwait, so it’s great—and vital—to see international films from these smaller industries showing up on popular streaming services like Netflix. Nevertheless, Back to Q82 is a curiosity that’s best left avoided.
The post From the Vaults of Streaming Hell: Back to Q82 appeared first on Spectrum Culture.