Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

shoobe01-1 As much as I hate to discuss technical or format details, do not watch this with dubbing. The dubbing is so bad that it's a different movie in many ways. For anyone who thinks something is unlikely, this happened. And this is about as historically accurate as a theatrically-released movie is going to get. I am not sure about the political parts, but it seems to be based on the reports of the terrorist actions and the assault. Footage shown on TVs during the movie is real. I thought all in all it was very well done (no evidence of low-budget, so no idea what those reviewer's complaints are) combination of action and drama. It's got a rather good pace, with something happening every few minutes. Sometimes it's just political drama, sometimes it's spycraft like stuff, sometimes its preparing for or executing the assault. 8 of 10 for a slightly too-weepy wife. Realistic support system, going to hang out with the other GIGN members, and wives, but I'd like more explanation why she is so incapable of handling what her husband does for a living.

Andre Raymond Tight little movie based on the real events. Other reviewers above have expressed frustration at the slow tempo, lack of story context and budget.First: The approach is very french in that you are expected to know some of the political context in which the story takes place. I have found that most of the people from France I know actually read newspapers, magazines and books and have a good grasp of both their history and current political affairs. Sadly, many Americans get their news exclusively from Fox.The tangled and complex relationship between France and Algiers where the story begins would seem a mystery to North Americans, but (I would surmise) makes perfect sense to a french resident. The inept, corrupt mismanagement of the french government in this affair would also come as no shock to someone brought up in France and would need very little explaining to its native audience.Secondly: The most expensive french film ever made could never rival an American super production. To its credit this film doesn't really try. It really doesn't need MORE and BIGGER explosions (especially when there were none during the actual event) to make its point. There is a lesson here for certain American producers.THIRDLY: The cinematography, down tempo music score and tempo are obviously meant to create a bleak, depressing atmosphere.In one of the first sequences, the French officer (Thierry) breaks in to a hostage situation and shoots the armed suspect only to find a woman hostage dead and a boy standing near her. He has arrived too late. He and the boy exchange a long look. I think we are meant to understand that the grim reality of his job is that these situations do not often turn out well.This early scene sets the tone for the rest of the film, but also frames the ending, where, lying in a pool of his own blood, Thierry looks over and exchanges a very long look with one of the female hostages. The moment is not overdone. She doesn't crawl over to hold his hand or mouth a thank-you or anything. It is understood. Here is a man who sacrificed himself to obtain her freedom.The film makers deliberately stretch out Thierry's agony, not revealing whether he lived or died all through the final shootout and all the way through to just before the credits. This was very well done.Many French film makers have a different approach to what has become just another sub genre in American action films. This is something to be applauded all the more so because American film makers are no longer allowed to make these kinds of films.

axlrhodes L'assaut is a French film based on the true events that occurred in 1994 when Air France Flight 8969 was hijacked by the 'Armed Islamic Group' at Algiers with the supposed intention of crashing in Paris. What should be a gripping and emotionally charged film plays more like a ploddingly dull TV drama. Attempts to breathe life into the central character 'Thierry', the leader of a special ops team assigned to the case, come off as more token than genuine as we're served a brief back-story and glimpse into his troubled world which includes an unhappy wife and a cute toddler who frequently asks where Daddy is. With a tight running time of just 87mins, the film doesn't waste any time getting to the actual hijacking, but once there seems to wander off on cul-de-sac sub- plots while showing scenes including characters we're not terribly interested in or invited to get to know. Considering the hostages endured a two-day ordeal at the hands of the hijackers, the film spends very little time exploring the mood on the plane in favour of amping up the testosterone for a criminally underwhelming climax. The inclusion of actual news footage of the real life events adds a sense of genuine interest but only to the point whereby you wish you were watching a documentary about the situation as opposed to a half baked dramatisation of it. Aesthetically, the film has a washed out look where colours are all but drained to black and white which in a better film might have some effect, but here it just seems to mirror how flat the screenplay is. Given that the films content is so flawed, the choice to shoot in the same shaky-cam documentary style as Paul Greengrass' United '93 inevitably draws unfavourable comparisons. While in the real world these dramatic events were to foreshadow the tragedy of 9/11, as a piece of film, this telling of those events lives deep in the shadow of United '93.

moviexclusive French director Julien Leclercq's sophomore feature is a dramatization of the events of Christmas Day, 1994, when a group of four heavily armed men from the Algerian Armed Islamic Group hijack an Air France flight bound for Paris. The comparisons with Paul Greengrass' 'United 93' are inevitable- besides the fact that both concern themselves with the hijacking of a commercial plane by Muslim extremists, Leclercq also employs the same hand-held, faux-verite style that Greengrass used to convey the urgency and immediacy of the unfolding events.For the most part, Leclercq succeeds in creating a gripping chronological account of the events leading up to the French GIGN's (the elite counter-terrorism paramilitary unit of the French National Gendarmerie) storming of the plane stranded on a runway in Marseille airport where it had stopped to refuel. Still, his film lacks the intensity and emotional muscle of 'United 93', which is perhaps also a consequence of the more drawn-out nature of the incident (two days compared to United's two hours) which it portrays.Leclercq, who co-wrote the screenplay with Simon Moutairou, chooses to tell the story from three parallel lines. Thierry (Vincent Elbaz) is one of the squad leaders of the GIGN, and the film's opening minutes attempt to contrast the harrowing nature of his daily work with the calming father figure he tries to be at home to his baby girl. On the other side of the barrel is Yahia (Aymen Saidi), the leader of the terrorist group who finds justification (however misguided) for his actions through fervent and frequent prayer. There's also Carole (Melanie Bernier), a French Interior Ministry staffer who finds it an uphill task to prove to her condescending male colleagues that the hijackers are in fact on a suicide mission.The choice of these three perspectives is interesting, especially the contrast between Thierry and Yahia. Leclercq draws similarities between the two, despite their relative sides in the impending battle. A poignant sequence where Yahia's mother meets him face-to-face to convince him to surrender affirms that Yahia is, like Thierry, a family man. Just like Thierry too, Yahia finds himself the rallying figure for his men, the symbol they look to for strength amidst their fears and anxieties for the task in front of them. Carole, on the other hand, portrays the authorities' unpreparedness in dealing with the threat of Muslim extremism, much of the dithering on the part of the French probably manifested in the same way by the American authorities when 9/11 hit.The fact that these three story lines unfold almost independently of each other means that there is less screen time for each of the characters- but Elbaz, Saidi and Bernier perform admirably in lifting their characters beyond caricature. In particular, Saidi is surprisingly effective as the determined terrorist leader who nonetheless is not without shades of humanity and concomitant uncertainties about his course of action. Bernier also convinces as the bold and resolute junior staffer willing to take risks to circumvent layers in Government authority.Together, the well-chosen cast hold your attention until the final 20 minutes where the action kicks in proper. There will certainly be detractors who will find fault with Leclercq's choice to shoot most of the action in close-ups, as it also means that it is sometimes difficult to follow the swiftly unfolding action. Nonetheless, this climactic showdown is no less heart-thumping, and perhaps it is even more so because Leclercq conveys it through the eyes of those thrust into the highly charged situation (think of it as a first-person shooter experience).And indeed, even if Leclercq was clearly influenced by Greengrass' method, there's no denying that he has utilised it effectively to retell a similarly harrowing real-life drama with style and verve. There is a raw energy to his technique of hand-held, documentary-style shots, and the intertwining of the dramatized events with real-life footage enhances the highly-fraught tension-filled situation. This isn't your standard-issue action thriller, but one which reminds us of the clear and present real-life danger present in our world out there, as well as the true heroes who put their lives on the line for those of others. www.moviexclusive.com