Banlieusards

A little slice of the French projects around Paris, la "banlieue" and its habitants les banlieusards, those on the wrong side of the boulevard peripherique, the circular surrounding Paris. Not necessarily realistic sometimes, actually making the banlieue look better than it is in lots of parts, but showing the huge range of possibilities and the randomness of it all. With the best or worst intentions some might rise some might fall, some make fast choices to provide for themselves or their families and meet their doom just as fast, some might get a second chance, some might not. I thought it was very well directed, and the four main actors are great, I hope to see them again in the near future.

The main flaw of this film is that it hesitates all long between crime gangsta flick and the social didactic drama depicting the life in the remoted suburbs. It's not LA HAINE, nor CHOUF, in waiting to LES MISERABLES, released in two months from now. The film makers are obviously from the urban jungle, the ghetto, so they know what the speak about. It's not Always done without ankwardness, but it's a honest piece of work. The true life I guess, but I repeat, we Don't know what we see here, a crime movie or a social study. But worthy. I would have guessed to find Doudou Masta here. A mobster character would have fit him like a glove. Or even Kaaris...

I want to first say, I don't mind slow movies, and I don't mind long movies (this one was slow, but short, but felt long). I've watched long movies, and slow movies, and enjoyed them. But this movie drug on and on.

The movie description is a bit deceptive. No one in this is living on "the streets". The supposed "projects", look far better than a lot of places I lived in. This movie was slow. There was no plot. I wanted to like it. The acting was decent, but it was just like they filmed a bunch of random things happening, little incidents, with no real "story".

I think what they were trying to do was simply show us a side of France we may not be familiar with... one where the police street check blacks, and gangsters (white and black alike) kill each other, and people rob each other etc.

It wasn't really effective. The speech scenes got old. But the final speech in the "debate" was kind of interesting.

Over all there was no real "story" to this. It just felt like a series of incidents filmed, leading up to nothing. I like movies that make me thing, movies that explore issues of race, or morality. But this one just fell short. I found myself bored too much to give this even a 5 star rating.

I feel bad giving it a low rating, because I feel like in some way that takes away from the messages the movie tries to express... but sadly, it didn't have enough of a story to really rate it high.

Some of the camera angles were weird too, which took me out of the moment. Such as one scene where they were sitting outside at a little cafe table, and to the front left and right were giant faces of two people... but ahead of them were our characters. That really took me out of the moment, as did many scenes.

Yet... some scenes were filmed well too.

Finally Kery James gets the opportunity to produce his award winning script, and what a script that is! It beautifully portrays the life of a family, with each family member having his own struggles in the "Banlieues" of Paris.

I really had no plan on watching this movie, and really just played it from minute 5 to get an idea of it. And I got instantly tucked in. Really enjoyable piece of entertainment coupled with a very nice base for thoughts on immigration, integration and social differences. Would recommend to anyone.