'Outside the Law' combines a fast-paced gangster movie with a historical drama about a little-known period of history.
'Outside the Law' combines a fast-paced gangster movie with a historical drama about a little-known period of history.
‘Outside the Law’ review
Michael Leibner Contributor
What are you willing to sacrifice in the name of freedom? Rachid Bouchareb’s intense historical drama Outside the Law, which premiered to some controversy at Cannes earlier this year, poses this very question, and wraps it in the context of Algeria’s struggle for independence from France.
Set mostly in 1950s and early 1960s France, Outside the Law chronicles the rapid ascent of three Algerian brothers (played by Jamel Debbouze, Sami Bouajila, and Roschdy Zem in solid performances across the board) who each struggle for an Algerian identity and freedom amidst oppressive French colonialism. While the youngest, Saïd (Debbouze), opts for personal freedom and wealth through corruption and ties to organized crime, the two eldest, Messaoud (Zem) and Abdelkader (Bouajila), follow a more idealistic path, becoming major players in a violent, uncompromising underground independence movement.
The most striking aspect of Bouchareb’s film is the urgency he infuses into every scene, which matches the urgency of the situations these characters are thrust into time and again. Running comfortably over two hours, it rarely slows down to take a breath and is compelling to the last.
The film works best as an examination of how people are driven to violence and extremism in the name of personal, cultural and political freedom. However, it neither praises nor condemns its characters’ actions. Instead of offering answers, Bouchareb forces us to confront some possibly uncomfortable questions: Can violence in the name of a cause be justified, either personally or on a larger scale? If so, how far is too far? Is a life dedicated to a cause noble when the cause is just, or does it become contemptible when it leads us to sacrifice our humanity?
This last question springs to mind during a scene in which Messaoud says to his neglected wife, in reference to their daughter, that he has “done so much for her,” even though we do not see him speak to her once in the film. The scene also captures the film’s weakness: in all this flurry of action and movement, it never slows down long enough to allow an emotional connection with its characters. When the intended emotional gut-punch scenes come towards the end, they never quite hit home.
But the film does work, as Bouchareb attested to in a post-screening Q-and-A, simply as a means to shed light on an important and somewhat neglected story. Whether you are familiar with the Algerian history behind it or not, Outside the Law makes for an engaging watch.
