Hero, A (2021) review

Having incurred over 70 million tomans in debt - which, converted into Iranian Rial and then to U.S. Dollars is roughly $16,500 (as of January 2022) - and placed in prison as a result, Rahim (Amir Jadidi) gets a temporary two-day leave to sort out his affairs which is when his "secret girlfriend" Bahram (Mohsen Tanabandeh) hands him a bag of gold coins which, if cashed in, would free him ... but instead he does the "right thing" and reports the coins missing with the bank (and the actual owner does claim them).  Farhadi takes the old saying "no good deed goes unpunished" and proceeds to really dig into it: Rahim is deemed a "hero" for not being greedy but then it gets messy when a rumor circulates on social media that it was a hoax ... which leads to him lying more.  Maybe it's just a tad overstuffed and perhaps Farhadi's "villains" could be a little more shaded (both the creditor and the interviewer are a little cartoonishly written), but few filmmakers ask major ethical and moral questions like he does ... and that's a blessing.  Fate's a funny little thing, too....