Truands

I enjoyed watching this film. Powerful acting from the cast and specially from "Philippe Caubère". I hope he does more films in the future in the "crime" category. I would cast him as the villain, bad guy anytime : )

I don't understand the negative reviews not finding a storyline here :) A good film needs to have your attention for its duration, and believe me this film does that.

I'm from LA, the movie capital of the world. Nowadays films are made by the kilo here :) but there is no quality. Give me a dozen "Truands" per year and I'd be a happy audience!!

IMHO this is one of the best and most hardcore gangster flicks out there.

It's grisly, sure, but also produced in a very realistic way, and the characters are extreme, most of them are utter nuts.

It has french humor, sex, drugs and violence in abundance.

But it also has an impressive array of characters and quite a complex story line.

In short, prepare for a hell of a ride.

I rank this one a masterpiece.

Check it out!

A French gangster film set in Paris with a very thin plot, lots of blood & gore, little or no character studies or plot lines, violent misogynist sex. I kept watching this and waiting for a plot to emerge. It didn't happen. The film starts with episodes of the various factions or gangs involved. One gang member is imprisoned. From then the film simply becomes a series of killings and murders until few of them are left. Reservoir Dogs it is not. Meserine it is not. Ronin it is not. The screenplay appears merely to be a pastiche of the best and worst of American gangster genre. The characters here are portrayed as cold violent individuals. Some characters have no apparent place within a thin plot - just filling up road kill. All this violent mayhem in a capital city and not a single policeman in sight? I found this film to be without much merit and not one that I would watch again, or indeed recommend.

Paris Lockdown: this one-man army of a wet paper bag of poor excuses of a wannabe gangster film, this is as empty as a crêpe Suzette in a nunnery on a Sunday morning. As rich as poor taste goes, yes there's boobs, bottoms and nodding heads galore but takeaway the sleaze, the flying bullets and the flash cars then all we have done is landed on the square that tells us to "Go Back To GO, do not collect £200...start again".

This is as deep and meaningful as gutters will allow it to rise, while an insight of Parisian lowlife drug smugglers, pimps and killers, there is just nothing to add to the narrative. Nothing. The characters are living the life of a one-dimensional caricature. We are given a so-called gang leader who simply is not memorable, and his pet dogs are just as easily put-down and unmissable as the whole sorry affair.

The entire episode here seems too have been pulled out of any sequence in their life, it is a Soap Opera of blood and thugs. This is a basic rise and fall of a Paris crime boss who lives his life whoring, shooting and, again, shooting. The development of these people is as far as your next bus stop to Plainville, even the Robert De Niro look-alike and his greased-up hair looks too pastiche, too…already done.

Frédéric Schoendoerffer, director, has placed the action in the seedy side of town, the bars, strip joints and night filled streets of Paris, France, Europe and to be fair, any self respecting Parisian gangster seeing this sad debunkle would be, allegedly, embarrassed.

With just a touch of bewilderment, this crime-caper has no direction apart from up. It is not a poorly made film, it's, forgive the pun, executed well, nice offensive language, great looking girls and mean mothers' doing their job, only too well. Some nice, forgive the pun, once more, location shots and bad attitudes, the odd torture sequence, done very nicely too, ouch. However, it is the putting together of this work that to make any coherent sense a plot, let alone a sub-plot would have been acceptable.

These guys are hard-core but when the spotlight of the good-cop, bad-cop is shining on their sorry backside, it is the whole main feature that will give the game away and get you busted, sent-down and sent to solitary

If you enjoy gangster movies, this is a must see, it's top notch! It's the hard and gut wrenching rendering of the hollow, treacherous life and risks you take being a proper gangster, and I've had the dubious privilege of meeting some in my time. The best gangster is the one with the biggest balls, there is no aber dabei. The message of the movie is clear as a bell; menace is the order of the day, by surprise or default. There is no glory, there is no deeper meaning, simple pleasures have no meaning and it's dog eat dog. Ugly life at best and it's really portrayed expertly by the players, shallow and unreliable, but reliably unpredictable, terrifying and perfectly psychotic bar a couple who are a bit 'smarter' than the rest and hold actual dreams for better things. The gallery is typical and every type is in place and proper form. The subtleties are really minute but they are absolutely included, look away and you'll miss it as a whole! I will watch this many more times. You might have a tough time digging it out, but well worth the effort. Now if you'll excuse me I'll go watch some other favourites!

And to those reviewers who were mystified or felt let down by the plot or the characters, may I suggest they watch the more mainstream movies and actors, because the fabulous subtleties of 'Truands' were apparently lost on them. They've never met real gangsters! Even the loot is realistic, just enough 'pennies' to make a new life!