Getting set to order Leos Carax's colourful The Lovers on the Bridge,I got an "Amazon Uk recommends" that actually looked like a good suggestion!,thanks to it having a pretty confrontational cover,which led to me getting ready to go on the assault.The plot-France/ Algeria:1994:With Algeria being in the middle of a civil war,plane travel from France to Algeria was being run on a limited, volunteered basis. Wanting terrorists to be freed from prison,four men dressed up as Air Algérie staff storm the plane.Before anyone can uncover their true identities the four men take over the plane,and announce that they are part of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA). Stating their demands,GIA reveal that their main goal is for the plane to fly to Paris with them in control. Fully aware over the severity of the situation,the government decide to bring in the National Gendarmerie Intervention Group (GIGN) to stop the terrorists from succeeding in their plan.View on the film:Despite the cover giving the title an Action movie book cover,co- writer/(along with Simon Moutairou) director Julien Leclercq & cinematographer Thierry Pouget largely go for something much more cerebral,as shaking camera shots go up and down the plane gathering the nail-biting fear and terror inhabiting each of the seats. Surprisingly going for over-stylised slo-mo during the fight scenes, Leclercq makes this a flaw that is easy to forgive,by keeping the camera firmly held during the incredible planning that the government and the GIGN put into taking on the GIA.Based on survivors of the attack Roland Môntins and Gilles Cauture's own book,the screenplay by Moutairou and Leclercq brilliantly avoid exposition to instead bask the viewer in the agonising amount of time (3 days) that passes during the operation, with puzzled board meetings with the government and the extensive, specific training that GIGN take part in keeping the nail-biting atmosphere bubbling away. Spending an equal amount of time with the government forces and GIA,the writers do very well at drawing a clear,distinctive outline for everyone,as the country witnesses an assault on its most valued beliefs.

The Assault is a fairly faithful recounting of the hijacking of Air France flight 8969 by Algerian Muslim terrorists in 1994. The story is told from three perspectives--the events on the plane, the leader of the French SWAT team, and some French politicians.Four terrorists board the plane disguised as Algerian authorities out the check passports of the passengers. Once someone notices their weapons and grenades, they have to take over at that point. They aim to fly to Paris and hope to have two detained terrorists released. However because a stair truck is still attached the plane, the plane can't depart. The Algerian authorities pretty much refuse to deal with the terrorists at all. Once they kill a French citizen, the French government demands the plane be allowed to depart, which it does, but to Marseilles and not to Paris due to lack of fuel.We meet also the SWAT leader who's married and has a young daughter that hasn't really bonded with him yet. The woman seems to have a bad feeling about things. While he realizes that the situation with the plane isn't favorable and that there will be casualties yet he demands to be the first to enter the plane. We're not sure if he's depressed or what.Meanwhile the French government is on full alert and some little girl working at some ministry meets the main bad Algerian terrorist who's in Paris. She offers him money to call off the hijacking, but refuses and takes the money anyway. She concludes that the terrorists will use the plane as a weapon and crash it into a French landmark. At some point in front of major authorities for some reason she just grabs the microphone and starts dictating when SWAT is to act.Once the plane is in Marseilles the order is given to assault the plane. This is around 1:15 into the movie. Our leader is indeed the first one in and the only one tasked with going after the terrorists who are all in the cockpit with the 3 pilots. All the other dozen of SWAT are busy helping the passengers escape.For no good reason the entire movie is filmed in a notch before black and white. There isn't a whole lot of dialogue and things are fairly slow for the most part. But given the events portrayed you do connect with the movie. You just can't help wishing it had been more thrilling and exciting.

Tight little movie based on the real events. Other reviewers above have expressed frustration at the slow tempo, lack of story context and budget.First: The approach is very french in that you are expected to know some of the political context in which the story takes place. I have found that most of the people from France I know actually read newspapers, magazines and books and have a good grasp of both their history and current political affairs. Sadly, many Americans get their news exclusively from Fox.The tangled and complex relationship between France and Algiers where the story begins would seem a mystery to North Americans, but (I would surmise) makes perfect sense to a french resident. The inept, corrupt mismanagement of the french government in this affair would also come as no shock to someone brought up in France and would need very little explaining to its native audience.Secondly: The most expensive french film ever made could never rival an American super production. To its credit this film doesn't really try. It really doesn't need MORE and BIGGER explosions (especially when there were none during the actual event) to make its point. There is a lesson here for certain American producers.THIRDLY: The cinematography, down tempo music score and tempo are obviously meant to create a bleak, depressing atmosphere.In one of the first sequences, the French officer (Thierry) breaks in to a hostage situation and shoots the armed suspect only to find a woman hostage dead and a boy standing near her. He has arrived too late. He and the boy exchange a long look. I think we are meant to understand that the grim reality of his job is that these situations do not often turn out well.This early scene sets the tone for the rest of the film, but also frames the ending, where, lying in a pool of his own blood, Thierry looks over and exchanges a very long look with one of the female hostages. The moment is not overdone. She doesn't crawl over to hold his hand or mouth a thank-you or anything. It is understood. Here is a man who sacrificed himself to obtain her freedom.The film makers deliberately stretch out Thierry's agony, not revealing whether he lived or died all through the final shootout and all the way through to just before the credits. This was very well done.Many French film makers have a different approach to what has become just another sub genre in American action films. This is something to be applauded all the more so because American film makers are no longer allowed to make these kinds of films.

French director Julien Leclercq's sophomore feature is a dramatization of the events of Christmas Day, 1994, when a group of four heavily armed men from the Algerian Armed Islamic Group hijack an Air France flight bound for Paris. The comparisons with Paul Greengrass' 'United 93' are inevitable- besides the fact that both concern themselves with the hijacking of a commercial plane by Muslim extremists, Leclercq also employs the same hand-held, faux-verite style that Greengrass used to convey the urgency and immediacy of the unfolding events.For the most part, Leclercq succeeds in creating a gripping chronological account of the events leading up to the French GIGN's (the elite counter-terrorism paramilitary unit of the French National Gendarmerie) storming of the plane stranded on a runway in Marseille airport where it had stopped to refuel. Still, his film lacks the intensity and emotional muscle of 'United 93', which is perhaps also a consequence of the more drawn-out nature of the incident (two days compared to United's two hours) which it portrays.Leclercq, who co-wrote the screenplay with Simon Moutairou, chooses to tell the story from three parallel lines. Thierry (Vincent Elbaz) is one of the squad leaders of the GIGN, and the film's opening minutes attempt to contrast the harrowing nature of his daily work with the calming father figure he tries to be at home to his baby girl. On the other side of the barrel is Yahia (Aymen Saidi), the leader of the terrorist group who finds justification (however misguided) for his actions through fervent and frequent prayer. There's also Carole (Melanie Bernier), a French Interior Ministry staffer who finds it an uphill task to prove to her condescending male colleagues that the hijackers are in fact on a suicide mission.The choice of these three perspectives is interesting, especially the contrast between Thierry and Yahia. Leclercq draws similarities between the two, despite their relative sides in the impending battle. A poignant sequence where Yahia's mother meets him face-to-face to convince him to surrender affirms that Yahia is, like Thierry, a family man. Just like Thierry too, Yahia finds himself the rallying figure for his men, the symbol they look to for strength amidst their fears and anxieties for the task in front of them. Carole, on the other hand, portrays the authorities' unpreparedness in dealing with the threat of Muslim extremism, much of the dithering on the part of the French probably manifested in the same way by the American authorities when 9/11 hit.The fact that these three story lines unfold almost independently of each other means that there is less screen time for each of the characters- but Elbaz, Saidi and Bernier perform admirably in lifting their characters beyond caricature. In particular, Saidi is surprisingly effective as the determined terrorist leader who nonetheless is not without shades of humanity and concomitant uncertainties about his course of action. Bernier also convinces as the bold and resolute junior staffer willing to take risks to circumvent layers in Government authority.Together, the well-chosen cast hold your attention until the final 20 minutes where the action kicks in proper. There will certainly be detractors who will find fault with Leclercq's choice to shoot most of the action in close-ups, as it also means that it is sometimes difficult to follow the swiftly unfolding action. Nonetheless, this climactic showdown is no less heart-thumping, and perhaps it is even more so because Leclercq conveys it through the eyes of those thrust into the highly charged situation (think of it as a first-person shooter experience).And indeed, even if Leclercq was clearly influenced by Greengrass' method, there's no denying that he has utilised it effectively to retell a similarly harrowing real-life drama with style and verve. There is a raw energy to his technique of hand-held, documentary-style shots, and the intertwining of the dramatized events with real-life footage enhances the highly-fraught tension-filled situation. This isn't your standard-issue action thriller, but one which reminds us of the clear and present real-life danger present in our world out there, as well as the true heroes who put their lives on the line for those of others. www.moviexclusive.com