outside the law (rachid bouchareb, 2010)

Sprawling film about the Algerian War of Independence that aspires to an epic quality it doesn’t quite reach. Bouchareb has a point of view, that the Algerian fight against the French was equivalent to the French resistance against the Nazis, and he effectively pounds it home. While you’d think such a film would be one-sided and didactic (well, it is, to a certain extent), the three Algerian brothers at the film’s center are not merely heroic, and their fight does not always bring out the best in them. Meanwhile, Bouchareb tosses in several homages to The Godfather, which aren’t quite as out of place as it sounds.