And now a list in completely random order of things that in life, in my opinion, on paper should not be done: become an old dimmerda; try bungee jumping for the first time after starting the morning with a full English breakfast (it’s not the beans, the egg or the sausage that’ll get you, it’s the tomatoes); organize your day thinking “everything will fit together perfectly, as long as Trenitalia doesn’t cause delays”; accepting a glass of prosecco from the supermarket after having gulped down five gin and tonics, also from the supermarket; drinking from a public drinking fountain in Skopje without first making sure that the hostel bathroom has a tub right next to the toilet; watching a crime drama about French infiltrators with a bad title on Netflix, which also lasts more than two hours; eat yellow snow. Theme song!
These are all things that guarantee guaranteed pain and suffering for you and those around you, as well as an entry in the Darwin rewards database. But it is also a list compiled without scientific method, which reminds us that common sense is a non-existent concept and never the same for everyone: it may be that the mayor of Skopje, in the name of the sacred heart of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, has decided to put a water filter in every drinking fountain in the city; it may be that that snow is yellow not because of the urination of a friendly prankster, but rather thanks to a mysterious benefactor who goes around spreading lemon syrup; may be that the regional fast train at 5.49pm is inexplicably on time; Furthermore, a French thriller from Netflix with a title that from afar seems to have tattooed on his forehead I AM USELESS, in reality only has the blood-stained face of Eric Cantona. In life you never know.
And in fact in the end it turns out that AKA It’s a French crime drama on Netflix with a shitty title, but at the same time it’s also one of those that won’t make you want to have eyes again. Not to mention that the protagonist (and co-writer) of the film is that wild beef with forehead and triceps of Alban Lenoir, who got it right in his third kicking film (after Stray bullet And Goal of the Dead) has fully earned a Val Verde bookmark and a glass ball with fake snow falling on the dorsal plates of a large monster to be placed at the entrance next to the key bowl. Counter theme song!
AKA begins with a journalist taken prisoner by a group of Libyan guerrillas, who take him to a prison created from a system of caves in the desert. Immediately after being locked up in the cell, the new arrival takes a razor blade from inside his ass – protected with film to avoid unpleasant internal bleeding, and from here we can sense the level of professionalism – he frees himself and we discover that he let himself be captured on purpose to free a woman who is a real journalist. The infiltrator massacres his terrorist friends, saves the woman, kills her (but not before getting thanks) to prevent her from handing over her report on Western interference in the Maghreb to the UN and finally takes a well-deserved cigarette before being sent off to some on the other hand for yet another shady mission necessary to maintain the state of affairs.
Not to say, but on top of that my friend also knows how to write.
Meanwhile, a hotel explodes in Paris and a minister is woken up in the middle of the night. The terrorist Moktar – a Sudanese warlord and former ally of the French – fled after an explosion that killed his wife and daughter. The minister says that he must be caught as soon as possible because yes, and there is also a fresh lead: Moktar has contacted Victor Pastore, a drug trafficker important enough to deserve an Albanian security chief. There is a need to infiltrate that gang here to ferret out the explosive Sudanese, and the leader of the secret people hunched over assures that he has the right man at his disposal to resolve the issue quickly and without much fuss. It’s Adam Franco, the guy who thanks to the incipit we know is big, bearded, silent, very efficient, quick of hand and mind, and above all unscrupulous when it comes to following the orders necessary to implement the greater good, or some other crap the kind that we little useless pieces of the gear will never be able to fully understand.
A milord always and in any case.
To infiltrate as quickly as possible, the boss of the secret people gives Adam Franco – and his gang in which every element is bizarrely uncoordinated – his true identity and his true, desolate story. That is Dijon (mmmh, mustard), prison (at 15 years old for killing the Mazinger who had kidnapped, raped and killed his little brother), legion (African). The Victor Pastore mentioned above would be Eric Cantona, an elegant gangster in a waistcoat around whom many things happen. Not only is he a close friend of the terrorist Moktar, but he is so ill with a generic death disease that he is forced to use oxygen when his men cannot see him so as not to show weakness; furthermore he has serious liquidity problems and Chechen kids who want to take over his shoes, and he has no scruples about doing business and making a fuss in front of his two children, a medical student and a cute little boy who are calmly abused when they are through the lies while talking about business.
Adam Franco, with his French Matt Damon expression with an extra dose of face, quickly enters Eric Cantona’s good graces because no one minds having a war machine in the house that speaks little and does everything you tell him. On the other hand, Adam Franco, aka the Norwegian chess champion Magnus Carlsen who has lost the desire to comb his hair every morning and has cut his hair, only needs a small pistol and a shit-stained jacket to decimate a gang of heroin dealers and recover Cantona’s kidnapped little son. Of course, it is also fair to say that Adam Franco – a man whose eyebrow arch and lower lip have long loved each other, reciprocated, and dream of a life directly on top of each other – is a ruthless brute who hates life, his is that of others; but he is also someone from whom the human race has taken away everything and the opposite of everything. He is left with the ghost of his little brother that he was unable to save but only avenge, and the missions that are assigned to him and that he completes without feeling the need to ask for further details. Because then, when those further details finally emerge, what happens is that you can no longer look the other way and pretend nothing happened.
Cantona doesn’t pretend anything happened. Cantona lists his enemies.
In the debut film of Morgan S. Dalibert – that is, coincidentally, the director of photography of Stray bullet – it’s all very French, but at the same time not too French. Sorry for the incredible precision of this comment, I know I lost someone along the way with a technicality like that. Let’s give some examples: in AKA there are non-French people who manage to have conversations with French people without being treated with condescension; furthermore, in the Cesarini area, an intense and tear-jerking montage appears of the various characters who are approaching the end (of their life, of their empire, of their unconditional trust in the moral as well as intellectual superiority of the first Western world) accompanied by notes of a piano playing the ethereal version of Hurt – the harmonic Johnny Cash cover, not the original Nine Inch Nails dissonance. French but not too much. Ethereal cover with class and atmosphere – not Evanescence – but still not specious stuff like Serge Gainsbourg. Pride without chauvinism. People who smoke one cigarette after another, but who at least give you the idea of knowing what a bidet is. AKAthen, it is a remarkable bloodbath, which displays a desolation and moral despair worthy of the good old days of Hong Kong – bless its soul – and aesthetically it is OK in all capital letters, in the sense that it carries out its solid job by saving on didacticism and accumulating only when necessary.
Even so, aware that we are now on friendly terms with a thriller as solid as a curbstone that slips away like a good double episode of Jack Reacher, a good two hours still seems a bit too long. But they make themselves endured, and for long stretches even appreciated, creating a discreet and balanced protein shake composed by mixing: the tragic personal stories of Adam Franco, who would like to stop always looking frowning but it is physiologically impossible for him; an unfair, cruel and portrayed status quo as in the most cynical and resigned polars, which leaves a bitter sense of impotence; a decent feeling for the cinematic story and, above all, a stunt coordinator who decided to earn his keep by putting in a considerable dose of enthusiasm and competence.
Netflix Social Media Manager Quotes:
“It’s called AKA because the guy is an infiltrator, but he still uses his real name. Zenial”
Toshiro Gifuni, i400Calci.com
>> IMDb | Trailer
