rebellion-film-imageLa Haine’s Mathieu Kassovitz returns, licking his wounds, to home soil following his less than auspicious results in Hollywood (he disowned the theatrical cut of his 2008 Vin Diesel apocalyptic actioner Babylon AD). Not one to shy away from a challenge, he’s back in the directors chair, as well as co-writing, co-producing and starring in this true-life account French colonial unrest which resulted in severe military force. Thankfully, the film sees Kassovitz back on solid ground, displaying much of the cinematic pizzazz which characterised his earlier work.

The film opens with scenes which occur towards the end of the struggle, where things have gone seriously awry, leaving the audience with an impending sense of doom from the off. The director still manages to present a taut countdown to the outcome of events from 1988 which saw members of a separatist group from the Ouvea island of New Caledonia taking 27 French military police and a judge hostage, demanding instant independence from France.

Kassovitz’s character Capitaine du GIGN Philippe Legorjus is dispatched there with his recovery team in an attempt to avoid conflict and seek a favourable resolution, if possible. He soon finds himself in the company of Alphonse Dianou, head of the rebels. Although initially hostile, Legorjus forges an empathic bond with the leader, and gains his trust enough to leave the hostage area (where he and a handful of his men are being held) to try and reach some kind of agreement back at base. The French government won’t shift, however, (the country is in the midst of a delicate presidential election) and Legorjus grows increasingly desperate to avert disaster.

Deeply critical of France’s tactless reaction to the coup, the director’s anger is palpable throughout, but this isn’t just a pointed political missive. Kassovitz is equally adept at capturing the quieter, absorbing backroom politics alongside the action in the rebel territory. He brings a technical mastery and moves his camera with the same precision he showed way back in his 1995 debut. The tight, considered direction is exciting to behold (a thrilling-staged flashback to the initial coup is viscerally brutal), and even at an arse-numbingly 136 minutes, the action never flags. The director draws strong performances from all his cast and he’s no slouch in the acting stakes himself (his previous, best-known efforts in front of the camera are as a bomb expert in Spielberg’s Munich, and as Audrey Tautou’s love interest in Amelie).

The film could have perhaps done without the solemn voiceover (which occasionally slides into onscreen exposition) but otherwise, on the strength of his work both in front and behind the camera, Hollywood should be issuing a grovelling apology to Kassovitz. Rebellion is a strong return-to-form for the director, and don’t be put off by the thoroughly unimaginative title, either. This is an intelligent, muscular and engrossing war film.

[Rating:4/5]