Tarek Boudali as strong as Tom Cruise? Did he really perform his stunts in 3 days max?

Three years after the action comedy 30 days max, Tarek Boudali returns with the sequel entitled 3 days max. In this feature film, the actor and director once again surrounds himself with his accomplices Vanessa Guide, Philippe Lacheau, Julien Arruti and Elodie Fontan.

Boudali takes on the role of Rayane, a not very gifted police officer who will fly to Mexico to save his grandmother (Marie-Anne Chazel) from the hands of a dangerous cartel.

He will then have to fight (with more or less success), resist a torture session, cling to a helicopter in mid-flight and climb a 330 meter high tower… A scene which is not without recalling that of Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol in which Tom Cruise climbs the Burj Khalifa Tower.

And that’s normal since Tarek Boudali is an unconditional fan of the actor and it is largely thanks to the latter that he performs his own stunts.

He explains in the press kit: “The idea was to make an American-style action comedy. It needed spectacular sequences, and as I wanted to parody Mission: Impossible, particularly with the scene where Tom Cruise climbs the famous Burj Khalifa tower in Dubai, I I chose Abu Dhabi, the Conrad Tower, which is the size of the Eiffel Tower.”

During our meeting to promote his film, Tarek Boudali told us: “I’m a fan of Tom Cruise and Jean-Paul Belmondo. They do crazy stunts and, as a spectator, when I see their film and think that it’s them doing their own stunts, it immerses me even more in the action.

That’s why I do my own stunts. Without cheating. Finally I do the stunts in real settings but everything is secure of course. Even though it’s a comedy, I wanted to convey this feeling to the spectators who go to see this film.“

For the purposes of his third feature film, Tarek Boudali peacefully climbed a 330 meter high tower, as shown in the video that the actor posted on his Instagram account.

The latter tells us: “I was good. It was very complicated to put together so I was happy to be able to do this sequence. All I could think about was the release of the film, telling myself that I couldn’t wait for the audience to see this scene.“

How was the tower scene filmed?

To best perform this stunt, the actor prepared alongside stunt chef Christophe Marsaud. The latter designed a winch system specifically for the film that did not exist before and tested it on a ten-meter high building in Bry-sur-Marne, before using it in Abu Dhabi.

As the Conrad Tower was only available for a limited time, the team was unable to do rehearsals on site. Three days were planned to film the shots with the drone, the shots with the basket and those of the interior when the two businessmen (played by producers Christophe Cervoni and Marc Fiszman) see Rayane climbing.

But the day before the filming, the time was reduced to one day, due to the arrival of ministers. Everything was completed in one day, but Tarek Boudali felt that something was missing.

AXEL Films production

We’re doing it again!

“The next day was my birthday. I had planned to spend the weekend in Dubai with friends who live there. There’s something there that’s bothering me. I don’t know what it is, but it bothers me. I look at the images. Again and again.

On Sunday morning, I decided that we had to go back: I realized that at no point did the camera show the top of the building with me below – without this shot, the viewer cannot realize how height I find myself“, he recalls in the film’s press kit.

Luckily, Tarek Boudali was able to shoot at the Conrad Tower on Monday morning, after the team installed all the necessary equipment overnight from Sunday to Monday.

But the helicopter scene was not easy either. Only a military helicopter was allowed to fly over Abu Dhabi airspace. Once the general staff accepted, the filming could be done with a military aircraft, a Black Hawk, and another for the shots.

AXEL Films production

Tarek Boudali says: “We start by doing two twenty-minute rounds. We had thought of everything, except for my shirt, the buttons of which attach like cufflinks… They all popped off one by one while I was in the air.

With the shirt open, you could see the safety strap underneath… I tried as best I could to hold it closed with my hands, but on arrival, when I saw the return images, we had barely fifteen usable seconds. In short, we had to redo everything.”

Tarek Boudali injured during filming

Asked about his stunts by Bruno Guillon at the microphone of RTLTarek Boudali also confided that he was injured during filming. “I cracked two ribs and dislocated my knee on the set of this film” he admits.

I cracked two ribs and dislocated my knee

“At some point I have to get compressed and my character has to say, ‘Stop! Stop!”. I still have a code in case things go wrong so that they can stop the machine, it’s the peanut word. So, I agreed with my whole team: “If you hear peanut, you stop everything.“, he explains.

Except that during the filming of the scene in question, Tarek Boudali forgot the famous security word. He pursues : I kept saying Stop, and I see my teams looking at me. They said to themselves: “He plays so well!”

I don’t think I’ve ever played so well. But it compressed me so much that I dislocated my knee. There, I yelled and they understood that there was a problem.“

AXEL Films production

If, like Tom CruiseTarek Boudali never backs down from a good stunt, this is not the case for his friend Philippe Lacheau who told us in an interview that he prefers to use stuntmen when possible.

Philippe Lacheau and Julien Arruti impressed

“Tarek loves doing stunts. When I do them, it’s because I have no choice. When we skydive in Babysitting 2 or in Nicky Larson, I push myself to do it because it’s for the film. But when I have the choice, I call on an understudy, Gary or Vincent Bouillon, and they do it much better than me.“

For his part, Julien Arruti said he was amazed by Tarek’s work and his phlegmatism: “When he was doing his stunts I had the impression that Philippe and I were more stressed than him, it’s a bit scary. Plus he does impressive things and manages it while remaining cool. Whether it was the stunt, his acting and the making of the film, I was very apprehensive for him.”.

3 days max is to be seen in the cinema.