Film Reviews

Outside the Law

• Rating:
• Director:
• Starring: Jamel Debbouze
• Details: France/Algeria/Belgium / 138mins (15A).

After the low key drama that was London River, Rachid Boucherab returns to material he seems more comfortable with, material he explored in his underrated WWII drama Days of Glory - the injustices served to his country by its colonial overlords. Here Boucherab is reunited with most of the cast from that war movie, but also is reunited with its problems.
The story follows three brothers - Said (Debbouze), Messaoud (Zem) and Abdelkader (Bouajila) - who, after the massacre of Sétif in 1945, when the French gendarmes brutally put down an Algerian independence protest, move in three different ways. Abdelkader is arrested for his political ideas, Messauod fights for the French army in Indochina and Said, who has taken their mother to the shantytown of Hiver, France, becomes embroiled in the criminal underworld. Released from prison, Abdelkader goes about organising support for the FLN, a terrorist faction operating in Algeria, and sets up a cell in France....
Appealing to those who enjoyed the recent Carlos and The Baader-Meinhoff Complex, Outside The Law is a slick thriller in the vein of Michael Mann's crime movies: a detailed, character-driven film. Mann isn't the only influence here, as Coppola's Godfather trilogy is referenced more than once: Said's stabbing of an old man in revenge for his family mimics De Niro's murder of Don Ciccio, while Apollonia's car bombing is also given a nod. The interiors would make Godfather's cinematographer Gordon Willis smile too.
Polished action sequences dot the running time, but Outside The Law suffers from the same problems of Days Of Glory. It's a tad too long and the constant jumps in time - the film opens in 1925, then hops to 1945, then 1953 and keeps making little leaps thereafter (a year here, eight months there) - halts any possibility of a seamless flow. The enemy is personified in Colonel Faivre (Blancan) but his appearance arrives too late in the day.
The thriller can get into murky territory with regards its politics. Boucherab likens the burgeoning FLN to that of the French Resistance, with the French authorities taking over from the Germans. Although it might be Algeria equals good, France equals bad for the most part, Boucherab does attempt a balancing act of sorts. The pro-FLN spokesman in the film, the single-minded, distant and cold Abdelkader, is not exactly a hero: his own brother accuses him of having no feelings or soul. Messaoud too struggles throughout with the violence he has felt has been forced to commit.
Those looking for a realistic action thriller should look no further, though.

Review by Gavin Burke