Outside the Law: Hors-la-loi (2010)

I, sort of, recognized the cast and director of this film when it was nominated for an Oscar, but it wasn't until a French co-worker spelled it out for me that I saw who was involved with this film. Directed by Rachid Bouchareb and starring Jamel Debbouze, Roschdy Zem, and a number of repeats from the previously nominated film Days of Glory, this was another French funded war movie.

Days of Glory focuses on North Africans enlisting in the French army in World War II, and this film is about Algerian's fighting for their freedom not long after World War II. The plot starts with an uprising on the streets of Algeria, which ends in a massacre but the French army and then follows the formation of the French based Algerian resistance.

The idea behind the film and acting were very impressive. I honestly found the plot to be a little dull. We seemed to get a very small picture of the overall resistance. It almost seemed like a handful of people did it all themselves from the slums of France. I don't know what could have been changed to portray how this resistance organization really brought in a number of people, but it just seemed so much smaller than it really was. Don't get me wrong the acting was great, and I could even see this through having to read subtitles. I just don't think I'll remember this film AT ALL in 2-3 years. Nothing was memorable, and I learned nothing about the Algerian fight. The Battle of Algiers (1966) was a far superior film, and I'm sad this didn't have more "terrorist" style fighting that they even talk about taking from the Vietnamese people in the film.

Vote: 6/10

IMDB Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1229381/

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