Athena is a French action drama film directed by Romain Gavras, from a screenplay by Gavras, Ladj Ly and Elias Belkeddar. It was released on Netflix on 23 September 2022.
After an Algerian-French teen, Idir, dies as an apparent result of Police Brutality, a massive riot ignites in the banlieue
Athena. Idir's older brothers Abdel (Dali Benssalah), Karim (Sami Slimane), and Moktar (Ouassini Embarek) find themselves on opposing sides of the conflict, with Karim leading the riots to demand the heads of the murderous cops, Abdel urging for a peaceful path to justice, and Moktar seeking an escape from the conflict with his drug stash.
Athena provides examples of:
- All for Nothing: The ending reveals right-wing extremists recorded themselves killing Idir while wearing police uniforms to instigate a race riot in France. They were successful.
- The Bad Guys Are Cops: Zig-zagged. Idir's death is apparently the result of police brutality, and the cops are the ones attempting to brutally quell the riots, but the police are also human beings, and police officials keep insisting that Idir's killers weren't cops. It's ultimately revealed that the killers weren't cops after all.
- The Bad Guy Wins: The end reveals that Idir was killed in a far-right false flag operation after all, which has achieved its ends of igniting chaos throughout the nation.
- Beware the Quiet Ones: Abdel is strangely focused on getting Sebastien to safety. Sebastien turns out to be a quiet, passive, and almost helpless man with some ambiguous mental disorder. In the third act, Abdel enlists him to open a police locker, and Sebastien immediately begins rattling off the tools and explosives he'll need. Ultimately he "goes crazy" and rigs several floors of the apartment building to explode for no apparent reason.
- Big Bad Friend: The first two acts of the film hinge on the conflict between Abdel the peacemaker and his beloved brother Karim, the rabble-rouser.
- Cain and Abel: Karim feuds with both Abdel and his half-brother Moktar for working against his riot.
- Cassandra Truth: The police keep insisting that the killers were a bunch of right-wing extremists. In the epilogue, we find that this is true.
- Category Traitor: Karim accuses Abdel of betraying his people by serving in the French military.
- Disc-One Final Boss: It turns out that Karim, the antagonist for the first two acts of the film, dies at the end of the second act. Abdel suffers a Face–Heel Turn in response to his death.
- Dressing as the Enemy: Jerome strips off his riot armor and puts on a black hoody in an attempt to fit in with the rioters. They don't fall for it, but it does prevent his fellow officers from recognizing him.
- Epic Tracking Shot: Quite a few shots are extremely lengthy and range all over the place. The first 10 minutes of the film are shot entirely in one cut, starts as a press conference and then follows Karim as he leads a police station invasion, jumps into van with stolen police equipment, drives through the neighborhood, enters a fortified banlieue, and marches to the parapet to face off against the police.
- Establishing Character Moment:
- Abdel is first shown angry but urging calm while wearing his military uniform, establishing him as angry but principled.
- Karim is first seen throwing a molotov cocktail at his own brother's press conference to start a riot, showing how he'll hurt anyone necessary to achieve his ends.
- Jerome is introduced picking at nail polish on his thumb, left there by one of his young daughters, establishing him as a decent family man.
- Face–Heel Turn: Abdel is working to try to save lives through the first two acts of the film. Then his brother Karim is burned to death in front of him, and he flips, deciding to side with the rioters after all.
- Fake Kill Scare: Abdel threatens to shoot Jerome and then fires two shots. When we cut back to Jerome, however, he's still alive. Abdel has spared him.
- Fatal Fireworks: Downplayed. Fireworks are heavily used by Athena's inhabitants and Karim's followers, but they don't kill anyone. Instead, they are used to keep the police at a distance and start fires.
- Friend or Foe?:
- Karim's stolen police van gets pelted as they drive it into Athena. He swears in frustration that his own defenders can't tell that it's him.
- Jerome gets shot by his fellow police while trying to get rescued.
- Looks Like Jesus: Midway through the riot, Karim lets his hair fall free down his shoulders and starts wearing an open-chested robe, giving him a messianic look.
- Meaningful Name: Athena is the goddess of warfare. The director was inspired to make the movie by Greek civil wars. A Greek chorus plays a few times late in the film. The police are often shown in phalanx formation like Greek hoplites.
- Molotov Cocktail: The opening scene takes off after Karim throws one at the doors of a police station, wreaking havoc and using the smoke to steal a locker's worth of guns.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown:
- Karim and his men give Jerome a superfluous stomping while taking him captive.
- Abdel delivers one to Moktar, his half-brother, for suggesting that they run away after Karim has been killed. It's not entirely clear whether Moktar survived.
- Ominous Latin Chanting: An ominous Greek chorus is sung when the police begins the raid on Athena after nightfall. Director Romain Gavras (son of French-Greek director Costa-Gavras) was inspired by the ancient Greek civil wars to write the story.
- The Oner: There are a number of extremely long takes throughout the film. Most notable is the Epic Tracking Shot that takes up the film's first 10 minutes.
- Skewed Priorities: Moktar is a drug dealer and is only interested in protecting his stash while a revolution breaks out all around him.
