'Rebellion' is an account of events in the French South Pacific territory of New Caledonia. In 1988 a group of indigenous New Caledonians storm a police station in the territory, killing some police officers and taking still more hostage. Events quickly become caught up with the Mitterand v Chirac presidential election and the Parisian police sent to New Caledonia to deal with the situation find the army have taken over the operation - and the military's methods of tying village chiefs to trees and beating up women are turning the local population even more against the French.The military are portrayed as gun-totin' buffoons without a shred of humanity and the politicians as self-serving vote-seeking machines. On the other hand, the police are self-sacrificing good guys and the terrorists family-loving, intelligent, reasonable chaps just one step below sainthood. This is not an unbiased film! It is also difficult for those not versed in French politics of the late 1980s to follow everything, not least because the English-language sub-titles use acronyms instead of the full, descriptive names of various organisations. The close, hand-held camera-work used during the forest battle scenes gives a good feel of how it must be in those confusing, noisy situations - but also makes it difficult for the viewer to follow events. Overall I enjoyed the novelty of a film set in the modern(ish) South Pacific, but this is far from unflawed.

It's a very difficult topic, a political one. And of course who else to direct and star in it, then the La Haine director. He knows about controversy. And he doesn't shy away from painting a France, that is anything but nice. Of course politicians will generally be seen as evil, but this movie is based on real life events and you can imagine how this might have played out.There are grey areas in the film, but you do get a lot of black&white moral decisions too. Even our main character is not flawless. He might seem one way, but you wonder if he could've gone or done some other things throughout the movie. The fact that you get a subtitle with each new day, lets you know that something is about to happen. So while it does seem inevitable, you still hope for something. Especially if you're not as familiar with what happened in 1988.While the movie seems to lose a bit its tension after a third of its running time is over, it picks up right after that. Not everyones taste, but a drama that will leave you wonder how this could've happened 25 years ago? Which sort of answers my initial question! Though the title cards at the end suggest that there will be a vote for independence ... lets hope it'll happen in 2014 as it is/was announced

This is the best Mathieu Kasssovitz' picture up now. This one, he thought about it since a while now. He did not make it only to pay his bills. It will remain his masterpiece. Nothing to do with BABYLON AD, that was not his actual work. Every movie lover knows that.This very one tells in details everything about the famous and bloody affair of the Ouvea cave, which occurred in May 1988, where the french army elite troops annihilated the local rebels - the Kanaks - who had taken a bunch of soldiers as hostages. This film is awesome because we don't find here any good soldiers vs bad rebels or bad soldiers vs good rebels scheme. The real ugly ones are ONLY the politicians who ordered the slaughter of the rebels, despite the hostages' lives!!! And only to serve their own politics purposes, power purposes. Because the close presidential elections. When you think of this movie, even long after seeing it, you may feel dizzy. You may puke on yourself. I am not proud to be a french citizen after watching this real gem.

L'ordre et la morale hits you like a sweet 3 punch combo...body, body, head...everything is on point, image (the opening scene, the helicopter landings, the reconstitution of the attack on the police station, the Mitterand/Chirac debate, the breathing jungle, the assault on the cave, Kassovitz's character in the helicopter upon learning of the second assault), sound, script (special mention to Alphonse's monologue by the fire, the old man's message from the rest of the village to the hostage takers and pretty much any of the scenes with the ambassador or the generals...minimal but extremely effective use of music...easily one of the best french films of the past ten years. Thank you Mr. Kassovitz.