Bayview Entertainment announced this past week that writer/director Neel Kumar’s Beneath a Sea of Lights will be making its domestic DVD debut on Mar. 23.
Caweys (Barkhad Abdi — nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Captain Phillips … also in such films as Blade Runner 2049, Eye in the Sky and as Abdi Howlwadaag in the Castle Rock television series) is a lucky man. A Somali with a skill who has managed to escape the horrors of Mogadishu for a job in the oil-rich nation of Dubai.
He is a billboard repairman, not like the kind of roadside signs that you might see on a long drive from Phoenix to Amarillo (stop in and see the aardvark museum, just 70 miles ahead), but those hi-tech ones with the flashing lights that offer only the best products … clothes, cars, jewelry, perfume; high end stuff.
Night after night he examines the products — up close, literally — and imagines what it would be like to have that watch or that car … all that goes with it. He has gotten this far and tries to move up with the company that has hired him, but it is made all too clear that he is a billboard repair man and will remain a billboard repair man and if that doesn’t suit him … they will get someone else.
He vents his frustrations to Jimmy (Jim Sarbh — Padmaavat, Neerja), an Indian ex-pat, who is a hustler. Being a hustler in Dubai is a skillset too. Jimmy sees in Caweys an opportunity and convinces him that if wants the stuff he sees on his billboards, he has to be willing to go get it.
It starts off small, a little of this, a little of that, but soon Jimmy has the gullible Caweys in way, way, way over his head. The bright lights and wealth of Dubai hide an underbelly of crime, greed and violence. If Caweys was expendable at the advertising company, you can only imagine how quickly he could disappear if the wrong path is crossed!!
Filmmaker Neel Kumar, with Beneath a Sea of Lights, has delivered a slick thriller and you can’t help, as the action moves along, to feel for Caweys, the perfect customer for what is up in lights … can he survive this rabbit hole that Jimmy has tossed him into! On DVD, Mar. 23, from Bayview Entertainment, be sure to circle the date on your viewing calendar.
Beneath a Sea of Lights is primarily in English with Arabic, Tamil and Hindi, English subtitles are provided.
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