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

Apart from the fact that it somehow managed to be green-lit for a big-screen release, another rather astonishing thing about Aaron Kaufman’s ridiculously plotted Urge – a movie that talks about the dangers of drug use in the most obnoxious of ways – is that it actually made its way into the Egyptian cinemas – gasp! Directed by Aaron Kaufman and scripted by a total of four writers, the absurdity of Urge is awfully difficult to put into words – it’s just one big mistake.

The story begins with Neil (Masterson); a self-important multimillionaire who decides to fly his friends, including his seemingly uptight girlfriend, Theresa (Greene), over to his modern mansion on the exclusive Eastman Island, for a weekend of fun.

With everyone hoping that the weekend of partying will help distract them from their otherwise shallow and trivial lives, the group soon finds themselves at a secretive club run by The Man (Brosnan in one of his most ridiculous roles yet), who introduces them to a drug called the ‘Urge’; a stimulant which helps remove the inhibitions of whoever takes it. However, there is a catch; it can only be used once. After an unforgettable night of partying, the group quite naturally decides to ignore the rules and try Urge for another night. This time, though, the high is not quite what they expected.

The biggest problem with Urge is that it doesn’t really seem to know what it wants to do or where it wants to go, relying solely on its flashy and seemingly empty aesthetic to do all of the talking. Everything from the nonsensical plot – a place where logic does not seem to reside – to the particularly awful acting from a bunch of actors whose characters are extremely unlikable and therefore, especially difficult to connect to, seems out of place and out of tune. Moreover, incoherency and clumsy pacing is another damaging factor, with the production often coming across as a little desperate to sell its premise of extravagance and uninhibited behavior from a group of people who are completely unaware of anything outside their shallow and superficial worlds.

The madness and the paranoia that takes over the second half of the movie fails to up the ante in anyway, leaving audiences wondering why the hell they should care. Overall, this is one truly, truly awful film that could just as well go down as one of the worst ones this year. Or maybe ever.