gradyharp Writer Director Rachid Bouchareb's first view of the Algerian involvement in France's participation in World War II as the extraordinary DAYS OF GLORY from 2006. Now he continues his story of the bravery of the Algerians in OUTSIDE THE LAW (HORS-LA-LOI) using many of the same actors but placed in different roles. This is a fast-paced film that covers a lot of territory and time and gives an insider's view of how the Algerian soldiers and the Algerian people struggled post WW II to gain freedom from French colonization. On many levels the films works well: on the level of character development and audience empathy it stumbles - but doesn't fall. The film opens in 1925 when a family in Algeria faces the French representative who informs a family that the government is taking their ancestral land and home: Le père (Ahmed Benaissa), La mère (Chafia Boudraa) and their three sons Saïd, Messaoud and Abdelkader. Understandably devastated they pack their scant belongings and leave. Jump to 1945 and the massacre of Setif, an event that forces the family to disperse: La mère with Saïd (Jamel Debbouze) move to a shantytown for Algerian refugees outside Paris and Saïd becomes involved with organized crime in Pigalle to support his mother (he begins as a pimp, then as a Cabaret owner, and moves into more dangerous activities such as fixed boxing matches, etc). Messaoud (Roschdy Zem) has become a soldier with the French army in the fruitless war in Indochina (Vietnam) and observes as the French retreat that external colonization of a country will always fail because of the inherent patriotism of the indigent people. Abdelkader (Sami Bouajila), because of this participation in the resistance during the Setif Massacre, has been imprisoned in France where he gains insight from his fellow Algerians that they must revolt and fight to regain independence for Algeria. Once reunited Abdelkadan becomes the driving force behind the Algerian's FLN movement. He is the local figurehead and brains, while his brother Messaoud acts as the muscle and bodyguard. Brother Said continues his pursuit of money through shady night clubs and as a boxing promoter, but he is never far from his brothers' sides - even if he isn't quite as politically motivated. The film jumps to the 1950s and the early 1960s following the development of the Algerian resistance as it becomes a murderous group, assassinating the French officials and police, engaging in fierce gun battles, all the while under the malicious eye of their nemesis Colonel Faivre (Bernard Blancan). As deaths in the family occur the family dwindles but always with the promise to each other that Algeria will gain its independence, a fact the is revealed through historic film footage from 1962. The film is a tense reenactment of battles and crime scenes, but there is a problem with the script in detailing the personalities of each of the characters beyond their devotion to Algerian independence. Even a marriage and the birth of a son and the death of the mother fail to substantially affect the three brothers beyond the expected reactions. The actors are all excellent but without the benefit of a script that allows them to offer us unique and meaningful individuals they become tropes. As a viewer remembering the brilliance of Days of Glory this film is strangely uninvolving. There is a sense that Rachid Bouchareb feared condemnation by either the Algerians or the French. Much can be said in favor of that stance: no one is 'right' or 'wrong' in war. But at movie's end we are left oddly outside the emotional aspect of the film that was the key to the success of Days of Glory. In the end this is a very well made and powerful film that answers many questions about the French Algerian conflict few of us understand. Grady Harp

elsinefilo The standalone sequel to Rachid Bouchareb's 2006 film Days of Glory,Hors-la-loi starts at a time on which the previous movie ended. The Algerian-African soldiers, who fought for France against the Nazi Germany in the previous movie, this time, fight against the imperial France for Algeria's independence. The fact that some actors have acted in both movies create a sense of interconnection, indeed.Against the backdrop of patriotic struggles of three Algerian brothers, the movie questions both the legacy of modern Western Europe and the hard-line policies of Algerian front of national liberation. From the three brothers, Abdelkader (Sami Bouajila) does a long stint in jail because of his opinions. Messaoud ( Roschdy Zem) goes on serving France as a soldier in the revolt against French rule known as the First Indochina War. He gets impressed by the determined struggle of the local Vietnamese. Saïd (Jamel Debbouze) feels obliged to leave his hometown Setif after the known massacre. He just takes his mom and leaves for France. Though he is not as politically motivated as the other two brothers he always takes his place beside his brothers. Abd-el-Kader, along with the help of Massoud, awakens a new soul of liberation movement in places like Renault workshops and local pubs. Said runs a cabaret and organizes box matches in a place where he started off as a pimp. Using Algerians in false ID and disguise, the liberation movement executes every important French police officer or soldier. The French decide to fight 'terrorism' with its own weapons so they create a secret organization which takes the appearance of a criminal organization and they indulge in 'terrorism' too.In some ways, Bouchareb's movie reminded me of "La battaglia di Algeri " but Bouchareb should take credits for his guts. He never tries to present the viewer a rosy picture of the revolution. The liberation movement does not recognize love or brotherhood on the grounds that there should be no personal passion and gain. Just because the cause is just, the party takes away every individual value out the lives of its members. That's why Massoud never sees his son grow up properly and Abdelkader threatens to kill his brother if he lets his boxer fight for France. Besides,the movie does not ignore the clash between two separate Algerian nationalist movements, MNA and FLN. Some right-wing French people criticize the movie because of its so called 'anachronisms' and some others call it even 'anti-French' but Bouchareb does not really anathematize the French. In the movie we see communist French activists who actually help the struggle of Algerians. Bouhareb may have forgotten that cinema is, on some levels, a light entertainment. He may not have made the perfect movie which is about conveying the whole truth, but at least he tried to do portray a part of his country's immediate past. Outside the Law is not an anti-French movie but it is surely an anti-colonial movie which deserves critical acclaim.

Matthew Stechel Caught this tonight its last night seemingly in theaters here...Simply put the film doesn't quite work the way it should. After a seemingly sure footed beginning, the film falls off a cliff offering scene after scene repeating the same thing as characters plot whom to kill and how to kill them in order to advance their agenda. The characters end up as one dimensional stick figures after a handful of scenes in the beginning establishing their take on the Algerian fight for independence, and after a while the film takes on a seemingly more and more outlandish (and at times almost comedic) Ma Barker and her outlaw sons like feel to it...("oh those boys of mine!") as the mother seems to be completely fine with the increasingly violent activities her sons quickly become consumed with. That's not to say the film doesn't have some beautifully filmed sequences tho-- the one at the end definitely packs a punch, but its not enough to save the whole film.Film didn't start out without interest---as its starting, you witness the difficulties facing the three grown sons of this woman in Algeria--the film is book marked by two real and spectacular bloody events from Algeria's fight for independence used here as the turning points for the three son's awakening to social injustice. After the bloody events of the beginning the film follows the three sons as they're all in different places...one's in jail and experiences a political awakening as a radical Algerian who dreams of taking the fight for freedom back to the streets once he's out, one's in the army and having some problems with the killing that he's doing becoming more and more desensitized, and one moves with his mother to try and start a new life in France and dreams of making money and eventually opening up his own nightclub...eventually the son in jail and the one in the army rejoin their family...and that's where the film's story really kicks into gear as the radical son and the army son join (and really kick-start) the FLA (freedom & liberation of Algeria) organization which from my viewing of the film and nothing else seems to consist of scene after scene of the radical son deciding whom to kill next in the name of his cause. The recruiting of the other two brothers and sticking together as a family to the cause seems to be important at first to the radical brother but quickly breaks with that idea once its established that the son who just wants to make some money has no interest in taking up arms against his new country--least he jeopardize any moneymaking attempts (he got a gig as a boxing promoter--grooming this young up and coming boxer for fame and fortune which figures into the plot later on when it comes about that the now terrorist organization will kill him should he fight in the name of France and not for his true Algerian homeland as he should) Film tries to build some tension from the contrasting beliefs of the two brothers (the third one--the army one after some initial hesitation seems to take to the killing in the name of freedom just fine and thus a once promising character conflict gets pushed to the back burner.) and indeed the fact that the film isn't a complete misfire is attributed to the suspense generated by putting the two brothers in this conflict with one another. One of the most memorable scenes has the radical brother telling the army brother that the time has come to kill their brother in the name of their cause, to which the army brother firmly puts his foot down...a fact that the radical will be thankful for after events unravel in the last half hour of the film. Indeed the climatic sequences where the two of them end up being bound together by their circumstances are not only well staged but so filled with the dramatic tension that was completely lacking in the rest of the film that you wonder why the director didn't cut to the chase with these two brothers sooner leading to what is undeniably a beautifully staged and fully realized all out riot in a train station, but its almost too little too late in terms of interest in the storyline.The idea of an Algerian Once Upon A Time In America (immigrant brothers starting up their own various criminal enterprises coming into conflict with one another) is a good one. I very much liked the way the director tried to create this whole saga around these still potent real world historical events, but i wish the characters (and the film itself) had more to offer then simply boiling down to brotherly love vs personal political beliefs. The film just doesn't sustain your interest in its plot line for its entire running time...lets just say it could've taken a lesson or two from MESSRINE---that film might of been twice as long, but it held your interest twice as much thru its runtime at the very least.

Red-Barracuda Outside the Law details a period in French-Algerian history from the end of the Second World War to Algerian independence. It follows three Algerian brothers who move to France and take completely different paths. One of them joins the French army, another becomes a political radical, while the third embarks of a life of crime. All of them are eventually brought together in the unified cause of Algerian independence and equal rights. It begins and ends with notorious bloody events.Much seems to have been made about the liberties that this film has taken with the facts surrounding certain key historical events. I am not in any position to say if this is a justified complaint or not, as I simply do not know. However, I think it's only fair to say that the plot-line follows a historically accurate path; whether or not the emphasis of events is skewered or not I can't say but, if so, it would not be the first time in cinema history that a film exaggerates for dramatic effect. Whatever the case, it's certainly a period in history that hasn't been depicted in films very often from what I can gather.While I did enjoy the film, I didn't think it was nearly as good as Rachid Bouchareb's earlier film Days of Glory. That latter film dealt with a similar theme - the difficulties French Algerians have experienced in their adopted land. I felt that Outside the Law didn't share that movie's sympathetic characters or its dynamic plot trajectory. It's overall a much more down-beat story.