Middle-aged cop with a troubled past gets reassigned to an isolated dump of a police station somewhere outside of Marseilles, where the police look the other way while all sorts of criminal activities are going on; the status quo is "we don't bother them, they don't bother us". The new arrival tries to challenge that status quo, and possibly redeem himself for what went wrong in his past, but the consequences will be severe....The script of "Les Insoumis" rarely rises above the routine, but the punchy direction and a solid (largely unknown, to me at least) cast make this film highly watchable. The opening sequence - a criminal gets "extracted" by his associates while he's being transported to prison - and the climax - the police station is besieged - are particularly well-done, and quite brutal, though not excessively so. **1/2 out of 4.

Not having a clue as to what this film was about, we took a chance when it showed on a cable network. The main attraction was Richard Berry, an actor we have seen in other movies. This film is a ripoff on the much better John Carpenter's "Assault on Precinct 13", of which, this is only a pale copy. The film directed by Claude-Michel Rome, is packed with action, so there shouldn't be any complaint about that aspect of the movie. The only problem is that most of the action makes no sense. We know from beginning to end where the story is going. The one dimensional characters don't add anything to the story. In fact, there is almost no excuse for what the film turned out to be. The opening sequence, as well as the conclusion, are about the best things in a film that, ultimately, doesn't satisfy. Mr. Berry's inspector will not add anything to his resume.

I won't destroy this film, and because it is a french action movie. There are so few... But it is not NID DE GUEPES, as I could expect. Not all directors are Florient Emilio Siri or Jean François Richet, maker of ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 (2005) or MESRINE two films. Spaking of ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, this very movie - LES INSOUMIS - is a hollow remake of John Carpenter's masterpiece. A bunch of cops are locked up in a police station - promised to demolition - by an army of high scale gangsters. It takes place in the suburbs of Marseilles. And Richard Berry is the "poor cop" who has been transfered by his hierarchy in this joint, a cop harassed by his personal problems and who will solve them because of the assault on the police station. You can live without it. But it's a good entertaining movie, to talk about at work, around the coffee machine, with your colleagues. A surprise at the end, seemingly close to Olivier Marchal's GANGSTERS ending too.

"Les Insoumis" is a surprisingly solid French action-thriller. It convinces with a twisted story line that ends in a rather classic and predictable ending but the beginning and the middle of the movie present a lot of tension filled events such as the desperate woman with the sick daughter that misses her husband, the young drug dealer that gets killed in strange circumstances, the racist legionnaire that shoots cats at night, the mysterious burglaries in a weapons cache or the suspicious past of the new police commander. All these events create an addicting puzzle the viewer has to put together before the final solution is presented. The movie also convinces with a very authentic social portrait of a desperate suburb in the south of France where authorities are not respected and even young kids insult police officers. The movie shows pitiless desperate young drug dealers, corrupt police officers, brutal thugs and pervert racists. Among these negative characters, there are also a couple of shining lights such as the police commander's friendly neighbour or some of his colleagues that try to do their job the best they can despite a lot of problems. The acting in this movie is definitely the best point. The rather unknown Richard Berry does an incredible job in the role of the cold, dutiful and straight police commander Vincent Drieu that has to fight his past demons to not repeat the mistakes he has once done. His acting is very authentic, filled with emotions and extremely addicting. I hope to see more movies of a similar kind with him in the future. The supporting actors also do an incredible job and portray very authentic and touching characters. I just want to cite the very charming but refreshingly down to earth character of Kathia that is portrayed by the very strong actress Aïssa Maïga that I particularly liked. She's quite the opposite of the main character and this contrast is why they fit so well together in this movie. Apart of these addicting characters and a very solid screenplay, the movie convinces with many well done action sequences, especially in the beginning and the ending of the movie. These scenes keep the pace high and will keep you on the edge of your seat until the end. These scenes are nothing new to the genre but once again filled with a lot of suspense and an excellent acting. In the end, I think that this movie should be more famous than it actually is. The acting is simply amazing, the story has some quite good ideas and the pace of action and suspense is always very fast. The only negative points are the too generic and predictable ending that doesn't fit to the rest of this original movie and the fact that this movie could have been a little bit longer. I would have liked to see an even stronger character development because the different characters were simply authentic. Once again, France has proved that they can do excellent action and suspense movies and not only the usual comedy and drama movies that get way more world wide attention.

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