Grimossfer Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Hayleigh Joseph This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Cristal The movie really just wants to entertain people.

SnoopyStyle It's April 22, 1988. Three or four gendarmes are dead and 30 kidnapped by Kanak separatists on the eve of the presidential election in France. They are sending in a platoon of 50 paras to New Caledonia. The PM sends in the Army to take control. There is a political competition between Mitterrand and Chirac, and everything is caught up in it. GIGN Captain Philippe Legorjus (Mathieu Kassovitz) and his men end up following the Army's orders. But soon they have to struggle against the army's barbaric tactics.It's a good historical drama. It's a bit simplistic with the Army being all bad. I'm not familiar with any of this story to have an opinion about its validity. All I can say is that it works as a dramatic movie.

euroGary 'Rebellion' is an account of events in the French South Pacific territory of New Caledonia. In 1988 a group of indigenous New Caledonians storm a police station in the territory, killing some police officers and taking still more hostage. Events quickly become caught up with the Mitterand v Chirac presidential election and the Parisian police sent to New Caledonia to deal with the situation find the army have taken over the operation - and the military's methods of tying village chiefs to trees and beating up women are turning the local population even more against the French.The military are portrayed as gun-totin' buffoons without a shred of humanity and the politicians as self-serving vote-seeking machines. On the other hand, the police are self-sacrificing good guys and the terrorists family-loving, intelligent, reasonable chaps just one step below sainthood. This is not an unbiased film! It is also difficult for those not versed in French politics of the late 1980s to follow everything, not least because the English-language sub-titles use acronyms instead of the full, descriptive names of various organisations. The close, hand-held camera-work used during the forest battle scenes gives a good feel of how it must be in those confusing, noisy situations - but also makes it difficult for the viewer to follow events. Overall I enjoyed the novelty of a film set in the modern(ish) South Pacific, but this is far from unflawed.

nuijel Rebellion is a good hostage movie. It presents a refreshing balanced view of what taking hostage means, which is not without reminding Dog Day Afternoon. Like it, it depicts real life hostage takers, not as dehumanized machiavellian bad guys, but as relatively ordinary people making bad decisions and the unravelling of violence it unleashes. But where Dog Day Afternoon, as an American movie, focuses on individual responsibility, Rebellion focuses on the reaction of society and its flaws, and this is where I have problems with the movie. I am not very familiar with that particular historical event, but the director, in its eagerness to show that violence could have been avoided, seems to give a bit quickly absolution to the hostage takers. They killed 4 innocent and unarmed policemen? Well, they regret, so it's OK to not surrender and even take more hostages. They make realistic demands, such as: "state officially that we are not terrorists or we kill the hostages" (!!), and intend to exploit their crime mediatically. What can be wrong with that?

dragokin I stumbled upon this one while browsing through Matthieu Kassovitz's filmography only because i've been acquainted with his previous work. However, it seems that Hollywood remains merciless and after one not-bad movie like Gothika (2003) and one sub-par like Babylon A.D. (2008) Mathieu had to turn back to France for funding.Rebellion (L'ordre et la morale) is as dramatic but not as much action driven as, for example, Black Hawk Down (2001) or Saving Private Ryan (2008), yet we know almost everything about the latter movies and virtually nothing about Rebellion. And at times it paints the big picture as monumental as Apocalypse Now (1979). So, i tried to understand why is this movie kept below radar level.Probably the main reasons are that it's in French and portraying events on an almost forgotten island in Pacific Ocean. But as the story develops we encounter all axioms of colonialism (ore deposit, indigenous people striving for independence, disinterested politicians, trigger-happy military) creating a powder keg bound to explode.Trapped in the middle is a negotiator played by Mathieu Kassovitz himself. He is usually good at what he's doing, but politicians would like to see a quick solution in the light of impending elections. Military is excited to see some action and there is little need for a negotiator that would like to resolve the deadlock by talking to the rebels.This is enough to give you a flavor of what you see in Rebellion, but also leaves you with a question why we don't know about it. Obviously, there are other things that make a movie popular apart from good script, captivating photography and exquisite performance by the actors. Yet i always feel bad when a stupefying blockbuster gets more media attention than a masterpiece like Rebellion.