Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Angel’ On Netflix, The True Story About An Egyptian Double-Agent

Ashraf Marwan is a well-known figure in the 1970s history of the Egypt-Israeli conflict, who was instrumental for both sides in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. A new Netflix biopic, The Angel, examines how Marwan became a double agent. Does it do his fascinating life justice?

THE ANGEL: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: In 1970, Ashraf Marwan (Marwan Kenzari) was a grad student studying in London, living the good life with his wife Mona (Maisa Abd Elhadi) and son. He drank a bit too much and gambled a bit too much, and Mona is concerned that the money that’s paying for his education will be cut off by her father. Who is Mona’s father? Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser (Waleed Zuaiter), who basically thinks Ashraf is an idiot.

Nasser is still plotting to get the land Egypt lost to Israel in 1967’s Six-Day War. Ashraf proposes courting American support, which Nasser dismisses because he doesn’t want to tick off the Soviets. In desperation for money, Ashraf calls the Israeli consulate in London and says he has information. Only a few days later, he’s pulled out of class by Nasser’s people; Nasser has died suddenly, and he and Mona must return to Egypt.

Vice President Anwar Sadat (Sasson Gabai) takes over and immediately implements a more aggressive stance against Israel than Nasser did. Ashraf finds information about Nasser’s closest confidants and brings it to Sadat; the subsequent arrests signal Ashraf’s ascendance into Sadat’s inner circle.

Then he gets a call from the Israelis. That phone call he made a few years earlier was recorded, and they use that to turn him into a double-agent, assigning him to a Canadian-Israeli Mossad agent named Danny Ben Aroya (Toby Kebbell). Trust is questioned as Ashraf gives Danny information that Sadat is looking to invade the Sinai Penninsula, but Sadat’s whims make Ashraf’s information go bad. That is, until he convinces Sadat to invade on the day the Israelis would least expect — Yom Kippur.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Any movie that examines the battles Israel and Egypt had until the Camp David Accords were signed by Sadat and Israel’s Menachem Begin in 1978, like Six Days In June.

Performance Worth Watching: Gabai is fascinating to watch as Sadat, who defied his government’s conventional wisdom in order to preserve Egypt, courting American support and eventually reaching a peace agreement with a country that was considered their sworn enemy.

Memorable Dialogue: “You fucked up, Ashraf. You keep fucking up. And I can’t protect you from people who get mad at you.” Danny to Ashraf after Ashraf’s family is threatened by who he thinks are Mossad agents, when it’s really people working for one of the Nasser confidants he put in prison.

Single Best Shot: Any time we see a close-up of Danny’s glorious ’70s ‘stache. While it’s giving us serious Gary Dell’Abate circa 1994 vibes, we somehow can’t look away.

Sex and Skin: One of the people who helps Ashraf’s with his spy intrigue, a “liberal” British actress named Diana Davis (Hannah Ware), tries to seduce him more than once, but he stays loyal to Mona. Unfortunately, that loyalty doesn’t get back to Mona in the end.

Our Take: The Angel is an American production with a definitive Israeli flavor, directed by Arel Vromen (The Iceman) and written by David Arata (Children of Men), based on the book by Uri Bar-Joseph. It tries to tell the true story of Ashraf Marwan, who has received high military recognition from both Egypt and Israel. It tries to take a wide examination of how Marwan got to such a high position in Sadat’s government while giving Israel such critical information. We see his growing relationship with Sadat, his deteriorating relationship with Mona, and his up-and-down relationship with his Mossad handler, Danny (or “Alex” as Ashraf knew him). It feels a little bit all over the place, even if it is based on real events.

The relationship that needed to be built up more was the one between Ashraf and Danny. Ashraf’s information is sound, but Mossad is about to cut him loose as an asset because Sadat keeps changing his mind. Much of the latter half of the film, when the two of them have to figure out whether to trust each other, was the most compelling part. Maybe if the movie got to that part faster, it would have been more effective.

Also, considering this an American production, the details about pop culture in the 1970-73 time period should have been more tightly observed. In the first scenes of the movie, two songs are used that were released after the scene is supposed to take place, a rookie mistake that should have been caught by a veteran director like Vromen.

Our Call: STREAM IT. It’s a good introduction to the thorny and complicated relationship between Egypt and Israel, told from the perspective of a real-life hero to both countries.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Watch The Angel on Netflix