November

The skilled Cedric Jimenez has already made the excellent The Connection and The Stronghold, so every new film of his is worth looking forward to (as with Olivier Marchal, who tends to be a French guarantee of quality when it comes to manly and tough films). This time, however, Jimenez chose a weaker moment with me. The film admittedly benefits from a strong and realistic premise: Black Friday of November 2015, when terrorist attacks took place in Paris. What bothered me the most was that Jimenez skipped the attacks themselves, so the best part of the film isn't really there – I wanted another Hotel Mumbai! Instead, the director focuses on the anti-terrorist forces trying to catch the suspects of the attacks during a five day deployment. There's a lot of investigation, interrogation, but I found it quite uninteresting. I was intrigued by the finale, which at least has a SWAT raid in action and there was a hint of suspense, but otherwise I found it unnecessarily slow and not as interesting as it should be for the premise. Some have compared the film to the American Zero Dark Thirty, but I thought that was a level better. But those who like films based on true events and anything with terrorists will not be disappointed. The craftsmanship and the acting are good. 6/10. (02/15/2023)

This is a brutally underrated cinematic gem from the land of the Gallic Rooster! I don’t know about you, but I was really looking forward to the meticulous work of all the involved police forces. One wouldn’t expect an adrenaline-pumping shootout in every other frame, right!?... But back to the film... Cédric Jimenez had already impressed me 9 years ago with his old-school detective film The Connection, so I was eagerly anticipating his new directorial effort. Jean Dujardin in the lead role was excellent; he’s always a guarantee of the highest quality. And the film itself offers plenty; I thoroughly enjoyed the chase after the criminals (the French excel in this genre). The ending was bound to please even the more demanding viewers, with the action inferno unleashed in a semi-collapsed building— I was totally floored (I don’t even want to know what my heart rate was at that moment). I recommend reading more about the final RAID operation, as it’s presented in a documentary style (1:1). Objectively, it’s more of an 8.5/10, but I’m happy to give it an extra star :) (03/13/2023)