Director: Ismael Ferroukhi
Starring: Tahar Rahim, Michael Lonsdale, Mahmoud Shalaby, Cristopher Buccholz
Running Time: 99 minutes
Certificate: 12A
Extras: Trailer, Interview with Director Ismael Ferroukhi, Interview with Tahar Rahim
Bloody hell, is there nothing that hasn’t been covered about WWII?! Well, yes, as it turns out. FREE MEN looks at the unlikely bond between a Muslim Algerian Younes (Rahim), and a Jewish singer Salim (Shalaby), who together join the resistance in Paris.
When Younes is caught by the Police during an identity raid instead of prison he is given the task of spying on Si Kaddour Ben Ghabrit (Lonsdale), who is suspected of forging papers for resisters and Jews. As Younes gets deeper in he finds he is on the wrong side and joins the resistance, denouncing his role much to the chagrin of the Police officer who assigned him.
FREE MEN is a film that tells an interesting story just not in a tremendously exciting way. The acting is tremendous throughout with Rahim again the star following his turn in A PROPHET, and the direction is sturdy as one could wish for. What’s missing is a little spark. The audience are teased with this when Salim appears and begins singing, but the golden moments are lost with cutaways to non-essential characters, and an unwillingness to see a song through from start to finish. The film also seems scared to allow the audience to think for themselves: questionable characters are revealed to be enemies far too quickly, and by the time they get their just desserts you will likely not care.
In a world chock full of WWII stories FREE MEN has been bold in its originality but that can’t save it from being a very average piece of cinema.
Extras: The two interviews are interesting and inoffensive, but nothing special much like the film itself.
FREE MEN is available on Blu-ray and DVD September 24th and can be purchased here
