Outside the Law (Hors la loi — "Outlaws") is a 2010 French-Algerian-Tunisian film directed by Rachid Bouchareb, who previously directed Days of Glory, which has some thematic resonance with this one.
It is a story of the Algerian War for Independence, and specifically guerilla fighting by Algerians inside of France. The film focuses around three brothers, Saïd (Jamel Debbouze), Messaoud (Roschdy Zem), and Abdelkader (Sami Bouajila). A prologue in 1921 shows the family losing its farm when a French national simply takes it. The film skips forward to May 8, 1945 and the Setif massacre
right on the day when World War II ended in Europe. Abdelkader, marching in a protest, is arrested and winds up spending ten years in jail. Far worse, the brothers' father and their sisters are massacred by rampaging French troops and colonial militia.
The film skips forward another decade to the mid-1950s. Saïd has taken his mother to France where, much to her disgust, he's earned a certain measure of success as a petty hoodlum. Abdelkader is released from a French prison. Messaoub is released from a Vietnamese prison at around the same time, he having been a POW from the Vietnam War. The three brothers are reunited in the Paris shantytown that is the Algerian community. Messaoub, even more radical after a decade in a French jail, joins the FLN and becomes a guerilla leader. Messaoub somewhat reluctantly joins him. Saïd refuses, continuing his disreputable ways. From there, the story of the war through eventual Algerian independence in 1962 plays out.
Tropes:
- Big "NO!": Saïd at the end, as Abdelkader is shot and killed by police goons on a subway platform.
- Briefcase Full of Money: Abdelkader takes a satchel full of money from Helene, a French leftist who is helping the Algerian resistance.
- Call-Back: In the opening scene the mother is shown scooping up dirt as the family is forced off their land. Some 40 years later, after she's fallen ill with TB, she shows Messaoub the bag of dirt and tells him to bury her with it if she doesn't live to make it back to Algeria.
- Coincidental Broadcast: Abdelkader flips on a radio with perfect timing to catch a news report about the attacks that he and the FLN have been launching.
- Cycle of Revenge: Abdelkader's boss in the FLN tells him to start killing torturers and cops. Abdelkader flinches, saying that if they do that the police retaliation will be merciless. His superior says that will only help the movement.
- Distant Prologue: There's a 24-year time skip between the first scene and the next one.
- Dramatic Sit-Down: Saïd's mother does a Wall Slump into a sitting position on their balcony, as she tells him that all of his sisters were killed by the French (their bodies are still lying inside).
- Evil Colonialist: All the French in Algeria, really, from the unseen Frenchman in the opening scene who takes the family's land, to the French colonial police in 1945 who open fire on the marchers in Serif.
- External Combustion: Abdelkader's French girlfriend Helene is killed by a car bomb. Because he was trailing behind and hadn't gotten in the car when Helene starts the engine, he survives.
- The Gloves Come Off: Col. Faive, convinced that law enforcement tactics won't work against the FLN, decides to fight fire with fire. He starts a death squad group, the Red Hand, dedicated to using terror and murder against the FLN and their supporters.
- I Have a Family: Omar, who knows what's coming as he has been caught Stealing from the Till of FLN dues, begs Messaoub for mercy, saying "I have three children." It doesn't work.
- I Owe You My Life: Otmani the French cop, and ethnic Algerian, calls Saïd with a warning that the cops are springing a trap on Saïd's brothers and the FLN. He specifically says that he's calling because Messaoub saved his life back in Vietnam, and that with the call he considers the debt paid.
- La Résistance: Discussed Trope. Abdelkader detains Col. Faive of the French police, for a talk only. Abdelkader asks Faive if he is ashamed of anything he did for La Résistance. When Faive answers "no", Abdelkader says that now the FLN is La Résistance, and the French are now the bad guys. He even asks Faive for help. Faive refuses.
- No Name Given: Neither of the brothers' parents are named.
- Pietà Plagiarism: Saïd cradles his father's body in the street after finding him shot down, a victim of the Serif massacre.
- Red Light District: The Pigalle district of Paris, a notorious den of strip clubs and prostitution. Saïd gets his start in crime there as a pimp's assistant.
- Rule of Three: There are three brothers. Abdelkader is both the local FLN leader and a fanatic wholly devoted to the cause. Messaoub is a soldier for his brother in the FLN but is also ridden with doubt and guilt. Saïd, the youngest, is assimiliated into French culture and largely indifferent to the war.
- Shame If Something Happened: Abdelkader wants help infiltrating French police headquarters. He corners Otmani, a French cop and ethnic Algerian. He tells Otmani that the FLN considers him a traitor but they'll give him one more chance. He then says that while the French police might arrest him, they would not arrest his French wife and children. Otmani winds up helping Abdelkader infiltrate the headquarters and murder another cop.
- Shout-Out: Multiple scenes are either, depending on one's POV, either shout-outs to or stolen from The Godfather and The Godfather Part II.
- Before leaving Algeria, Saïd approaches an old man sitting in a chair in a courtyard, greets him, and then knifes him to death, as revenge for the Serif massacre and the deaths of his father and sisters. This is highly reminiscent of Vito Andolini murdering the Sicilian don in The Godfather Part II.
- To kill the French police officer, Abdelkader gains entry to the station, then obtains a gun hidden behind a radiator, like how Michael retrieved a gun hidden behind a toilet tank in The Godfather. Abdelkader is a Non-Action Guy like Michael as well.
- Helene and Abdelkader are leaving for Germany. Helene gets in the car first. Abdelkader spots a suspicious passer-by and screams a warning just before Helene starts the engine and the car blows up. This is a direct lift from Michael's first wife getting blown up by a car bomb as he watches in The Godfather.
- Stealing from the Till: One of the FLN faithful in Paris, Omar, steals some of the group's money to buy a refrigerator. He is killed by Messaoub on Abdelkader's orders.
- Stock Footage:
- There's stock footage of the May 8, 1945 VE Day celebrations in Paris. This cuts artfully to a shot of the protests in Serif the same day, in a shot that at first looks like more stock footage but then shifts to color.
- More stock footage later in the film showing attacks by the FLN in Metropolitan France.
- These Hands Have Killed: Messaoub, tormented by guilt over his FLN activities, tearfully confesses to his mother, saying "I've killed people...with these hands."
- Time Skip: Big time skips of 24 years from the first sequence in 1921 to the Serif massacre in 1945, then another eight-year time skip that finds Messaoub in the French army while Saïd is getting along well as a minor-league hoodlum and Abdelkader is still rotting in prison.
