Crypto Boy Review: Directed by Shady El-Hamus, the Dutch drama film stars Shahine El-Hamus, Sabri Saad El-Hamus, Minne Koole, Isabelle Kafando, Loes Schnepper, Jonas Smuders and others. It has been written by Jeroen Scholten van Aschat and Shady El-Hamus and has a runtime of 103 minutes. Streaming on Netflix, the film is also available to watch with English subtitles and dubbed audio and other languages for international audiences.
As a lighthearted watch, the new Netflix film a young man, who, after a dispute with his old father, falls to the prey to the sensationalism of cryptocurrency, believing that it will help him find financial freedom and stability. However, as can be expected, things don’t necessarily go as planned for him.
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Crypto Boy 2023 Review Contains No Spoilers
Crypto Boy Review
As can be seen for the cast and crew credits, Crypto Boy is very much a family affair, no just in terms of the fictional storyline it pursues but also the cast members and the director involved in the making of this movie. Shahine El-Hamus and Sabri Saad El-Hamus take the lead as the main son-father duo that generate all the foundational drama that kicks this movie off the ground. The real life father-son duo believably weave out a relatable onscreen dynamic between a collected father, settled back with his olden traditions and rigid conventions, as he plays it safe in his closed-down restricted arena.
Shahine El Hamus’ Amir, on the other hand, fills the movie up with his young vivacity and adrenaline-driven youthful pace to take control of his life. Racing to complete deliveries at his father’s small restaurant, Amir hopes to take a leap and handle a number of responsibilities, but his father thinks that he’s not ready for any of it and is still unworldly and lacks leadership qualities. This forms the crux of their never-ending arguments, and the movie itself starts off by presenting us a similar amateurish picture of the young man.
Other characters mostly come in as the supporting cast lot and the film has no intentions of shifting the camera to focus on their lives. That way, we, too, only concentrate on their dysfunctional, yet relatable and familiar relationship. Moreover, not much is let on about Minne Koole’s character either, so it’s hard to make up your mind about where you stand when it comes to him.
The Dutch flick makes for a very relaxed introductions and has no plans of spelling out what cryptocurrency is or how it functions. It doesn’t even necessarily make a pro/con case for the subject matter, rather only makes room for it to exacerbate the emotional tensions between the two leading men and characters of the film.
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If you’re hoping for this be your gateway entry into this world of digital currency, or a crash course on the topic, then you should instantly put all expectations and such ideas aside because Crypto Boy is nothing like that. It isn’t even as profound as The Wolf of Wall Street that somewhat deals with that financial side of things, or The Social Network that makes way for a significant story of breakout fame. The Dutch Netflix film is rather simple and easy to digest, primarily because it is none of those things and has no interest in spelling out the complicated and technical intricacies of the matter to you.
It opts for a familiar linear path that posits its young protagonist as an underdog, struggling to make it big, all while some new changes around him endanger his community’s years-old stability. Falling for the allure of something shiny that he knows nothing about, he stills plans to take over the world, till life itself knocks some sense into him, as he simultaneously attempts to do good by his father. We’ve all seen this film, and possibly, it’s this vision of casual familiarity that makes it so easily digestible.
There’s a good chance that deja vu may strike you several times while watching this movie, especially if you’re a fan of simple Bollywood films that were released back-to-back in the early 2000s, or even relatively older American movies, that often portrayed similarly troubled familiar relationships, with the protagonist fired up by the urge to prove himself right and then being misled by the allure of something promising them the world.
Crypto Boy Netflix Movie: Final Thoughts
All in all, I didn’t have any qualms with this Netflix release. Even though its quite similar to a lot of titles that reside back in my faint memory, it’s laid-back movie to unwind to. Anyhow, it may be a tad bit infuriating to see Amir being dragged down by something that’s literally too good to be true on the face of it.
So it seems that the movie’s writing has intentionally dumbed his character down in that sense, but it was just one of those days that I preferred to go ahead with this predictable watching experience, on other days it may seem like a drag too considering how fatally predictable it is, but at least we’re blessed with some decent acting from the cast.
Crypto is streaming on Netflix.
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