When a young woman discovers her father was once a spy, she suddenly becomes entangled in an international conspiracy. A film by Neil Burger, starring Phoebe Dynevor, Rhys Ifans, Necar Zadegan, Kersti Bryan, Ciara Baxendale, and Majd Eid.

At her mother’s funeral, Maya Welch (Phoebe Dynevor) is approached by her estranged father Sam (Rhys Ifans), who offers her a job in high-end real estate, brokering deals for wealthy clients from Egypt and India. He claims he wants to make up for lost time. For Maya, it’s a chance for a fresh start and also a way to finally escape the apartment where she spent nine agonizing months caring for her dying mother.

Believing her father’s intentions are genuine, Maya agrees and accompanies him on a flight to Cairo to meet their clients. However, Maya becomes suspicious when a flight attendant addresses Sam as “Mr. Robertson”, although Sam brushes it off as a mistake. When Sam leaves his seat, Maya searches his bag and discovers a UAE passport bearing the name Samuel J. Robertson.

While walking through a Cairo flea market, Maya confronts her father about the Robertson passport. Sam explains he changed his name in the past to protect both his real identity and his family when dealing with shady clients. He admits to laundering money through real estate for them, but insists that’s all behind him now and he’s no longer involved in that business.

At the restaurant, Sam reveals to Maya that he worked as a spy for the State Department while they lived in Turkey, where his role was to connect with locals and gather intelligence. He claims Maya’s late mother knew all about his espionage work. Their conversation is abruptly cut short when Sam receives what appears to be an important call and steps away from the table.

Moments later, Maya gets a frantic call from Sam, telling her to grab his iPad and get out of the restaurant immediately. Though confused, she has no choice but to trust him. As she rushes out, she spots several Egyptian police vehicles pulling up to the restaurant. Over the phone, Sam directs her to avoid the riverfront and promises to meet her at Zebdya Café.

At the café, Maya is approached by Khalil Ibrahim (Majd Eid), Sam’s business partner and friend whom she remembers meeting at the airport. Khalil tells her that Sam has been kidnapped, explaining that Sam had asked him beforehand to protect Maya if anything went wrong.

Khalil insists Maya can’t return to her hotel because he suspects the kidnappers are waiting for her there. He warns her not to call the police, explaining that with so many corrupt officers, they can’t know who to trust. He takes her to a different hotel instead, where Maya receives a call from an unknown number. It’s Sam.

Sam tells her to open the calendar appointment on his iPad and go to the specified location, where she should use his name to collect an item. He stresses that she must destroy the iPad afterward and keep this mission completely secret, emphasizing she shouldn’t even tell Khalil. As the call continues, the kidnapper grabs the phone and makes two things clear. First, if Maya contacts the police, Sam will die. Second, if she fails to deliver the item, they will track her down and kill her.

Directed by American filmmaker Neil Burger and co-written by Burger and Olen Steinhauer, INHERITANCE is an espionage thriller that follows a young woman reeling from her mother’s recent death.

The story feels unnecessarily simplistic, yet somehow still over-dramatic. I can’t figure out why the writers included Maya’s random shoplifting scenes. Is her skill supposed to become crucial to the narrative later? Unfortunately, It never pays off.

For a film billed as an espionage thriller, there’s shockingly little tension. No gunfights, no real casualties, just a mundane mission to retrieve an item from a deposit box. Where are the stakes?

The pacing also drags terribly. Do we really need so many scenes of characters traveling by plane, taxi, and train? Or endless shots of cash being counted and exchanged? These add nothing to the story.

The motorcycle chase is the only sequence with any energy, but even that feels more like something you’d see in a TV drama than a proper cinematic thriller. Phoebe Dynevor and Rhys Ifans turn in solid performances given what they had to work with, though their characters remain frustratingly one-dimensional throughout.

The bigger issue is the film’s complete lack of surprises. Even worse, key plot points strain credibility to breaking point. Are we really supposed to believe a hacker’s hard drive full of classified documents would have zero encryption? Or that someone would casually write the password to their multi-million dollar cryptocurrency on the side of the drive?

INHERITANCE was theatrically released in the United States on 24 January 2025.