La mentale

The story of a part of life between two friends in Paris. Boot come from outside the central of Paris, they come from the poor part, the difficult part, a city nearest Paris. They growth together and they start to steel motorbikes together. After four years in jail, the first man wants to stop definitely to live has a bandit and he wants to find the right way of live. A story where the gangs try to get more and more money and respect. The men want to get money quickly as possible and tray to follow they dreams and they illusions. A nice movie, may be nearest the reality of gangs. The presence of women stay outside the main history, near doesn't exist. Good presence of very good french actors and also the second job actors. A nice picture anyways and a very good screen-player. A movie to watch absolutely.Good Bibi.

No actors, no script, no director, no movie. Naceri is a typically good boy. Perfect for Taxi, but not for this movie. Since, he is the worst actor in this movie. His _character_ is a mad, fanatic criminal offender, but he can't show us. The one good thing in the movie: the music score. Otherwise the worst movie that I had been ever see.

Dris (Samuel Le Bihan) is an ex-con, living in the borderline between a decent and a criminal life. He has a regular and simple work and lives a simple life with his wife Lise (Marie Guillard) and loves his family. However, his childhood friends from his Arab community, including his best friend Yanis (Samy Naceri), are mobsters and his brother is a small time delinquent. Yanis tries to bring Dris back to his gang, and uses his former lover Nina (Clotilde Courau) to seduce him, taking him to expensive places to feel the importance of big money. Dris fights against the temptation, but an event will route him back to Yanis' gang and in a fight between gangs with tragic consequences for the whole community. "La Mentale" is another great French crime movie. The story is excellent, the performance of the whole cast is great and the music score is wonderful. The excellent French cinema is showing excellent thrillers, crime and horror movies. I do not understand the purpose or reason of some unfair reviews I glanced in IMDb. Probably these viewers intended to watch a Walt Disney cartoon, or maybe a French romance (they usually are excellent) and saw "La Mentale" by accident, because it is indeed an excellent mob movie. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "O Último Favor" ("The Last Favor")

because shot a 'beautiful' gangster movie. There is nothing beautiful in this movie: lighting is flat and the composition of the frames are uninteresting at best. It's a mess because the story is totally inconclusive. After watching it on the big screen all that's memorable is a monster shoot out at the end. Sound design is unbearable with all its bigger than life gunshots and door slams. The production tried to make a Hollywood style epic but failed miserably.

This is an excellent film. It's classic mob-drama. Something we've forgotten in this age of kung-fu fighting, wire-swinging, bullet-dodging one-liner screen-heroes. The acting is outstanding. Samy Naceri & Samuel Le Bihan are an impressive duo, in particular Samuel Le Bihan is very convincing as the violent gangster with a past he's trying to forget and a life he's trying to straighten out. Inevitably his past catches up with him...