It's the issue of the hour! Now ,more than ever,you have got to watch it!
Nothing is spared the audience:the Lebanese orphan boy sold by his uncle for a car ,the terrifying indoctrination,brainwashing,military training worthy of a marine man...And the hero is a child whose father was killed by the Jews .And they told him the Jews and the infidels (Christians) are evil and must be killed .Terrorism or the silent WW3 which has already begun.
A child remains a child whatever the adults subject him to.A short scene shows one of the "recruits" clutching his teddy bear.
A child builds his own world.Whereas Djilali plays a "real " game,Karim calls his soft toy "Christophe Lambert" and decorates his room with James Bond posters."When you are a child,Karim says,you can imagine all that you want".
THe woman suggests Djilali he watch a movie.She says she chooses at random,but the movie is René Clément's "Jeux interdits" ("Forbidden games",1952).And the first sequences show a bombing,during which the young heroine,Paulette, becomes an orphan.Brainwashing again.But it's a double-edged weapon,cause in that movie,Paulette has sworn eternal friendship with her new buddy Michel.That's what the two boys will do. They (and mainly Djilali) do not trust adults anymore,and they know that they are on their own.
Gilles de Maistre masterfully directed his two young actors.Their performances compare favorably with Truffaut's Comencini's and Yves Robert's works involving children.Their lines are sensitive,sometimes funny ,but above all insightful and clever.
The last lines of the movie claim it's a true story.This is par excellence the movie Hollywood could remake,but God preserve us!
"Killer Kid" -the title might be a misnomer and make people think it's a dumb action-packed movie -is one of the most important French movies of the nineties.It should be watched in all junior high schools of the planet.
