Outside the Law (2010 film)
Outside the Law | |
---|---|
Directed by | Rachid Bouchareb |
Written by | Rachid Bouchareb Olivier Lorelle |
Produced by | Jean Bréhat |
Starring | Jamel Debbouze Roschdy Zem Sami Bouajila |
Cinematography | Christophe Beaucarne |
Edited by | Yannick Kergoat |
Music by | Armand Amar |
Production company | Tessalit Productions |
Distributed by | StudioCanal (France) |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 137 minutes |
Countries | France Algeria Tunisia Belgium |
Languages | French Arabic |
Budget | $22.6 million |
Box office | $4 million[1] |
Outside the Law (
A historically unorthodox portrayal of the 1945
Cast
- Jamel Debbouze as Saïd
- Roschdy Zem as Messaoud
- Sami Bouajila as Abdelkader
- Chafia Boudraa as The mother
- Bernard Blancan as Colonel Faivre
- Sabrina Seyvecou as Hélène
- Assaad Bouab as Ali
- Thibault de Montalembert as Morvan
- Samir Guesmi as Otmani
- Jean-Pierre Lorit as Picot
- Ahmed Benaissa as The father
- Larbi Zekkal as The boss
- Louiza Nehar as Zohra
- Mourad Khen as Sanjak
- Mohamed Djouhri as the trainer
- Mustapha Bendou as Brahim
- Abdelkader Secteur as Hamid
- Damien Bonnard as Cabaret employee
Production
Outside the Law was not written as a direct sequel to Rachid Bouchareb's 2006 film Days of Glory, about North Africans who fought for France in World War II, but shares many of the main actors, and starts at the place in history where the previous film ended. Bouchareb said, "You can't help but associate them, because it's the same soldiers who fought for France against Germany, a lot of them were the same soldiers that later went on to fight France. So, historically speaking, the same group of people had a lot going on early in their lives. When I was interviewing people for Days of Glory, a lot of the people I was talking to were also telling me what happened after, which is how I came to write the other movie."[3] Bouchareb researched the subject for nine months, primarily by interviewing people. Finishing the screenplay took two years.[3]
The film was written with actors Jamel Debbouze, Roschdy Zem and Sami Bouajila in mind from the beginning. Debbouze described his role's place as the youngest brother, and stronger ties to the family, as a key for approaching the character.[4] Zem's character was inspired by the character played by Sterling Hayden in The Asphalt Jungle. Zem said, "When I saw the movie, it was obvious what Rachid was looking for: a combination of brute force and restraint."[4] Bouajila said about developing his character, "I tried to work out how, through his convictions or pride, a man can fall into the trap of his own charisma and drag other people with him. When everything spirals out of his control, he has to face himself and realizes that he is only a man."[4]
The 19.5 million
Filming began at the end of July 2009 and lasted five months.
Reception
The film premiered on 21 May 2010, in competition at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.[6] French distribution was handled by StudioCanal and the premiere took place on 22 September 2010.[7] It was released in Algeria on 6 October of the same year.[8] In the United States, the film was distributed through Cohen Media Group, which released it in New York on 3 November, Los Angeles on 10 November and in a limited run throughout the country on 26 November.[9]
Critical response
Outside the Law has an approval rating of 76% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 41 reviews, and an average rating of 6.46/10.[10] It also has a score of 59 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on 14 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[11]
François-Guillaume Lorrain of
Regarding the controversies, Fayçal Métaoui, who reviewed the film for the Algerian newspaper
The Philadelphia Inquirer published a review by Carrie Rickey, who wrote, "Under the obvious influence of Francis Ford Coppola, Bouchareb frames his shadow-ridden guerrilla heroes as the Algerian counterparts of the Corleones", referring to the American film The Godfather, and further that Outside the Law owes "an enormous debt to Jean-Pierre Melville's Army of Shadows (1969), about French resistance fighters one-minded in their goal to subvert Nazis". Rickey wrote, "Bouchareb is sometimes a little too one-minded: His movie might have been richer emotionally had he written scenes showing the characters' domestic lives and not strictly their professional spheres."[16]
Stephen Holden of The New York Times called Outside the Law a "didactic, unashamedly manipulative film", and also saw parallels to The Godfather and Army of Shadows: "Those are mighty shoes to fill, and as powerful and well-made as it is, Outside the Law is too schematic and single-minded to lodge itself in your mind as a fully realized cinematic epic. Its few female characters are sketchy at best."[17]
Political reactions
Before the film premiered, already it was met by political controversy and nationalist-oriented criticism in France.
Box office
The film opened on 400 screens in France, with 195,242 admissions after one week, which equaled a fifth place on the domestic box-office chart. The number of screens was increased to 437 for the second week, but the film dropped to eighth place on the chart. When the theatrical run ended, a total of 393,335 tickets had been sold.[24] This was considerably less than the 3,227,502 that Days of Glory attained four years earlier.[25] As of 10 April 2011, Box Office Mojo reported that the worldwide revenues of Outside the Law corresponded to 3,298,780 US dollars.[26]
Accolades
The film was nominated for Best Screenplay at the 16th
Sequel
Bouchareb has stated his desire to make a third installment that would end a trilogy that started with Days of Glory and continued with Outside the Law. He hopes to be able to produce it four or five years after Outside the Law. It will be a thematical continuation of the two previous films and focus on "50 years of immigration".[29]
See also
- Algeria–France relations
- Beur
- List of Algerian submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
- List of submissions to the 83rd Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
References
- Notes
- ^ "Outside the Law". JP Box Office. Retrieved 25 July 2019.
- ^ a b c d Lemercier, Fabien (23 July 2009). "Bouchareb launches into Outside the Law". Cineuropa. Retrieved 29 April 2010.
- ^ a b c Truax, Jackson (3 December 2010). "Interview: Rachid Bouchareb". awardscircuit.com. Archived from the original on 6 December 2010. Retrieved 27 January 2011.
- ^ a b c "Outside the Law Press Kit". StudioCanal. Archived from the original on 16 July 2011. Retrieved 27 January 2011.
- ^ a b Lemercier, Fabien (25 January 2011). "Outside the Law, The Illusionist stay in race". Cineuropa. Retrieved 26 January 2011.
- ^ "The screenings guide" (PDF). festival-cannes.com. Cannes Film Festival. Retrieved 27 January 2011.
- ^ "Film profile: Outside the Law". Cineuropa. Retrieved 27 January 2011.
- ^ Kaddour, Tegguer (30 September 2010). "Hors la loi pour le 6 octobre prochain". El Watan (in French). Retrieved 28 January 2011.
- ^ Mowe, Richard (4 December 2010). "Outside the Law (Hors la loi)". Box Office Magazine. Box Office Media. Archived from the original on 24 January 2011. Retrieved 27 January 2011.
- ^ "Outside the Law". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 17 October 2020.
- ^ "Outside the Law". Metacritic.
- ^ Lorrain (2010) "les Français ont le mauvais rôle ... avec une comparaison qui risque de faire grincer des dents : les Français sont assimilés aux Allemands quand les Algériens endossent les habits des résistants. Difficile de ne pas sortir de Hors-la-loi avec un sentiment de culpabilité, provoqué déjà par Indigènes de Bouchareb, qui, en filmant le contrechamp maghrébin, appuyait là où cela fait mal dans l'histoire officielle de la France. Dans le même temps, il n'offre pas un tableau idyllique du FLN, loin de là."
- ^ Sotinel (2010) "étouffent les efforts des acteurs", "Hors-la-loi s'effondre sous le poids du spectacle."
- ^ Métaoui (2010) "Certains critiques français ont cru déceler « un parallèle inacceptable » entre la lutte contre le régime hideux du nazisme et la présence coloniale française en Algérie. Cela ne semble pas être le cas de l'intention de « Hors la loi » puisque le but était de montrer que la France n'avait pas tenu une certaine promesse faite aux algériens. ... Le film, parfait sur le plan esthétique et qui est loin d'être un navet, peut être inscrit dans le registre anti-colonialiste mais pas anti français."
- ^ Métaoui (2010) "L'histoire officielle algérienne a complètement ignoré l'épisode"
- ^ Rickey, Carrie (18 February 2011). "Algerian resistance with gangster feel". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved 10 April 2011.
- ^ Holden, Stephen (2 November 2010). "Algerian Brothers Reunite in Paris, Outrage Still Burning". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 April 2011.
- ^ Guy Pervillé (3 October 2010), Réponse à Thierry Leclère (2010) (in French)
- ^ Hugues (2010) "les erreurs et les anachronismes sont si nombreux et si grossiers qu'ils peuvent être relevés par tout historien. ... Les nombreuses invraisemblances présentes dans le scénario montrent que la rédaction de ce dernier n'a pas été précédée par une étude historique sérieuse."
- ^ Staff writer (1 May 2010). "Bouchareb film slammed for 'falsifying' history of French-Algerian massacre". france24.com. France 24. Retrieved 27 January 2011.
- ^ Hugues (2010) "ce film anti-français"
- ^ Brown, Mark; Cannes (21 May 2010). "Hundreds protest as 'anti-French' Outside the Law is screened". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 August 2016.
- ^ Hugues (2010) "Rachid Bouchareb a interrogé beaucoup de gens, de témoins et d'historiens. De ce point de vue, je ne pense pas du tout qu'il se soit écarté de la réalité historique."
- ^ "Hors-la-loi (2010)". JP's Box-Office (in French). Retrieved 27 January 2011.
- ^ "Indigènes (Days of Glory) (2006)". JP's Box-Office (in French). Retrieved 27 January 2011.
- Amazon.com. Retrieved 10 April 2011.
- ^ Lemercier, Fabien (21 December 2010). "Of Gods and Men leads Lumière nominations". Cineuropa. Retrieved 27 January 2011.
- ^ "Nominees for the 83rd Academy Awards". oscars.org. Retrieved 25 January 2011.
- ^ Staff writer (18 October 2010). "Interview with Rachid Bouchareb". dohafilminstitute.com. Doha Film Institute. Retrieved 27 January 2011.
- Articles
- Hugues, Bastien (29 April 2010). "Polémique autour du prochain film de Rachid Bouchareb". Le Figaro (in French). Retrieved 30 April 2010.
- Lorrain, François-Guillaume (21 September 2010). "Hors-la-loi, le film qui fait débat". Le Point (in French). Retrieved 28 January 2011.
- Sotinel, Thomas (21 September 2010). "'Hors-la-loi' : rebelles académiques". Le Monde (in French). Retrieved 28 January 2011.
- Métaoui, Fayçal (7 October 2010). "Boue d'hier, mensonge d'aujourd'hui". El Watan (in French). Retrieved 27 January 2011.