The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

The story is centred around Wilee “Coyote” (Gordon-Levitt), a cocky and daring Manhattan bike-messenger  who has a certain amount of time, 90 minutes to be exact (running time of the film) to get from the Upper West Side of Manhattan to Chinatown in the south east to deliver an envelope, handed to him by Nima (Chung).

The task alone is a piece of cake for the dexterous Wilee; however, his route gets intercepted by a corrupt cop (Shannon) who has an agenda of his own. This sets off a wild fast-paced chase through the rush hour of New York City and the precious content of the envelope starts attracting a lot of unwanted attention.  The story has a couple of subplots with regards to Wilee’s feisty girlfriend Vanessa (Ramirez), also a bike-messenger, and the urgency of the envelope.  But mostly, it’s a race against time, a ticking clock displayed sporadically throughout the film, and against cops on both two and four wheels.

On the downside though, the story is filled with undeniable plot holes and overall, it doesn’t aim too high.  The romantic relationship between Wilee and Vanessa fails to make a connection with the audience and somehow gets lost in translation. Also, Shannon’s over the top performance and his representation of a ‘dirty’ cop left us wondering whether or not he was in full understanding of the role he was playing.