a stylized staging of Islamist violence

THE OPINION OF THE “WORLD” – WE CAN AVOID

The young Kamal, a biker from the Molenbeek district – a Brussels suburb that has become a hub for Islamism in Europe –, one fine day undertakes to redeem his religious behavior and leaves for Syria to help the refugees caught under the fire of the belligerents. Enlisted more or less by force by the Islamic State organization, which claims that its emir has pledged allegiance to the group, here he is himself blocked in Rakka, where, taking the measure of the deviation of this movement, he will try to escape to the most inhuman obligations. To this first narrative line of rebelis added another plot in Molenbeek, where his mother tries both to find his trace and to prevent Daesh recruiters from getting their hands on Nassim, his younger brother who dreams of following the path traced by his eldest.

This double plot whose lines will eventually meet gives Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah the opportunity to renew their taste for the stylized staging of violence. Childhood friends, these two Flemings of Moroccan origin already have six thundering feature films to their credit and the start of a Hollywood career with the making of the third part of the Bad boys franchise (Bad Boys for Life, 2020). This American Christmas tale has since darkened with the abrupt shelving of the Batgirl they have just shot for Warner. rebel does not seem likely to put them back in the saddle. The subject is first of all a minefield for whoever would like to offer, as is the case here, a reconstruction that is both credible and aesthetically acceptable of the extreme violence of the Syrian events on the one hand, of the activities of the Islamic State of the other. It has been treated a lot in the cinema, to the point of producing infinitely more platitudes than good films. Suffice to say that their all-out approach – musical comedy in the kebab, romantic romance in the desert, spurts of blood and child martyrs… – is far from convincing.