“French Gangster Flicks”

La Haîne – Mathieu Kassovitz (1995)

La Haîne and Le Samouraï are very different films, but each stars one of France’s coolest leading men. Vincent Cassel—best known to English-language audiences for his roles in the Ocean films and Black Swan—stars in La Haîne as Vinz, a young small-time gangster living in a multi-ethnic housing project outside Paris.

The film follows Vinz, who is Jewish, and his two closest friends, Hubert, an Afro-French boxer, and Saïd, an Arab-Mahgrebi, over the course of 24 hours. The plot is set in the aftermath of a riot in which a friend of theirs is brutally injured by police. Relations between banlieu residents and the police are tense. After Vinz nearly shoots a policeman, the group escapes to Paris to wait until the situation cools down.

La Haîne is one of the first films to confront the segregation of French society, poor living conditions and a lack of opportunity in housing projects, and the friction between residents and law enforcement. Yet the film avoids turning Vinz, Hubert, and Saïd into martyrs, victims of a broken system. They are impulsive and rash, but no better or worse than anybody else they encounter during their sojourn in Paris. La Haîne is both an uncompromising social critique and a film of artistic merit.

Le Samouraï – Jean-Pierre Melville (1967)

Often imitated, but never replicated, Le Samouraï stands in a class of its own. Melville’s classic is a “cherchez la femme” / noir-inspired crime film that stars Alain Delon as Jef Costello, a solitary hitman with a perfect track record.

Clad in tailored suits, coupled with his trademark mackintosh and khaki fedora, Costello drives around Paris in any Citroen DS that suits his fancy—he’s got a special set of keys that enable him to burglarize whichever car he pleases.

The film’s opening shot, Costello fully-clothed, smoking in bed, is overlaid with text from Bushido: the book of samurai, which reads, “There is no greater solitude than that of the samurai unless it is that of the tiger in the jungle... Perhaps...”

Le Samouraï is a classic of the genre—fans of Nic Refn’s, “Drive”, and Luc Besson’s, “Leon: The Professional” will recognize its influence.