Le Monde est à toi (2018)
Directed by Romain Gavras

Film Review

Such was the lukewarm reaction to his first directorial offering, Notre jour viendra (2010), that Romain Gavras waited almost a decade before embarking on his next cinematic venture.  In the meantime, he continued his successful and prolific career making pop videos and publicity films. Le Monde est à toi is something of a seismic departure from Gavras's debut feature, a lowkey road movie that had difficulty finding an audience.  With a talent-rich cast headed by ever-popular A-listers Isabelle Adjani and Vincent Cassel, this second film has box office appeal stamped all over it.  A madcap comedy thriller that never flags for a second, it looks like a zany collaboration between Bertrand Blier and Guy Ritchie, with a dose of Coen brothers madness thrown in for good measure.

Romain Gavras has some way to go before he can emerge from the shadow of his illustrious father Costa-Gavras, the author of such notable thrillers as Compartiment tueurs (1965), Z (1969) and Missing (1982).  Le Monde est à toi is certainly a step in the right direction, generously scooping up all of the familiar caper movie clichés and repackaging them as the most deliriously unhinged French comedy of the year.  Despite the abundance of uninhibited silliness on display, the film manages to be effortlessly entertaining, thanks mainly to the sheer comic verve of the principal cast, who seem to revel in the opportunity of letting their hair down and stamping their feet down on the comedy accelerator.

Adjani, better appreciated as a serious dramatic actress, shows a surprising flair for knockabout farce, positively luxuriating in the role of a domineering one-woman crime wave.  Cassel likewise shows some unexpected comic prowess as a gormless fish-out-water type, with the equally capable Oulaya Amamra and François Damiens both lending some creditable support.   Most impressive however is Karim Leklou who steals the film as its sympathetic out-of-his-depth hero, the likeable goon whose efforts to go straight appear to be constantly thwarted by bad luck and a crime-addicted  mum who just can't give him an honest break.  What Le Monde est à toi lacks in originality and coherence it more than makes up for in good natured fun.

Film Synopsis

François lives on a housing estate in one of the more deprived neighbourhoods of Paris with his domineering mother Danny.  An inveterate shoplifter, the latter is proud of her criminal prowess and has done everything to ensure that her precious offspring follows in her footsteps.  Unfortunately, François has other ideas.  His one ambition is to give up peddling drugs and forge an honest career for himself.  When an opportunity to become a North African distributor for a leading ice cream company comes his way, he grasps it with both hands, but before he can realise his dream his mum squanders his hard-earned savings and the deal is put in serious jeopardy.

To make up for his financial shortfall, François must head over to Benidorm to fulfil a commission for a local drugs baron.  In this he is accompanied by his devoted girlfriend Lamya and his mum's constantly bemused ex, Henry.  The seemingly straightforward assignment soon goes horribly awry when François's contact, a Scottish bad boy, fails to honour his side of the deal, leading the well-meaning Danny to abduct his young daughter in retaliation.  Before he knows it, François is embroiled in a criminal battle of wills from which there seems to be no way out...