Le Dernier gang (2007)
Directed by Ariel Zeitoun

Film Review

Le Dernier gang is an enthusiastic but somewhat prone-to-cliché attempt to breathe new life into the latest manifestation of the French film policier, a genre that has enjoyed something of a renaissance in the past decade after the success of such films as Olivier Marchal's 36 quai des orfèvres (2004) and Jacques Auduard's Un prophète (2009).  The film is based on the highly publicised exploits of the so-called Gang des Postiches, the most notorious bank robbing gang in France of the 1980s.  Between 1981 and 1986, the gang executed around thirty hold-ups whilst the police tagged along hopelessly behind them in a seemingly futile attempt to end to their reign of terror. 

In the hands of a more capable writing and directing team, the exploits of the Postiches gang could have made a superlative action thriller, but unfortunately it was director Ariel Zeitoun who took up the challenge and the results are just what you might expect.  Zeitoun's forte is lowkey, instantly forgettable comedies such as XXL (1997) and Bimboland (1998), not hard-edged thrillers requiring a certain amount of directorial bravado.  Le Dernier gang boasts an exceptional cast - Vincent Elbaz, Sami Bouajila, Gilles Lellouche and Pascal Elbé - but the efforts of these big-hitters are largely wasted on a film that, in its half-hearted attempts to splice together disparate genres (policier and romantic drama), totally loses coherence and collapses under the weight of its haul of second-hand clichés.

It isn't clear from this stylistic and thematic mess of a film whether we are meant to sympathise with the robbers or revile them; so shallow is the characterisation and so parodied are the gangster portrayals that the crooks are little more than vanilla-flavoured comic-book stereotypes. Ariel Zeitoun's direction is as frenetic as ever but needlessly so and rapidly becomes wearisome, robbing the film of focus and character depth.  French cinema generally has a good reputation of making this kind of film.  However, next to the recent Mesrine films, Le Dernier gang appears woefully inadequate - a bland action thriller which initially resembles a cockeyed parody but ends up looking like the laziest imitation of its bigger budget American cousin.

Film Synopsis

In the mid-1970s, Simon lives in the poor Belleville district of Paris and scrapes by through his petty criminal activities, assisted by his equally hard-up mates.  Inevitably, he lands up in prison and meets another hardened criminal Mohamed Badaoui, nicknamed Casa, under whose influence he brings into being one of the most notorious gangs France has ever known.  With his enthusiastic partners in crime - Bonner, Maxime and Merle - Simon embarks on a series of daring robberies that soon make the gang the scourge of the police and a national medium sensation.

In the course of one of his criminal exploits, Simon meets a young woman named Julie and falls madly in love.  By the mid-1980s, things could not be going better for Simon and his gang.  Disguising their identity with wigs and false facial hair, they go from one bank raid to another, with the police seemingly helpless in their efforts to thwart them.  One man is determined to bring them to book, however - an unflinching cop named Milan.  He intends to capture Simon and his gang if it is the last thing he does...