2 hours, 18 minutes
This epic film should have been named something else, other than Outside the Law (which sounds like a Steven Segal movie) which I bet is why a lot of people don't give it a second look. But it turns out it's the story about Algerian independence and people's struggle to obtain it from France. Three Muslim brothers born in Algeria grow up suffering at the hands of the French by having their land taken from them, their father murdered, and their mother having to live in extreme poverty. All three of the brothers manage to survive---one is forced to join the French Army and go to Indochina, another goes to prison because of his revolutionary stance, and the other one becomes a sort of gangster pimp and boxing promoter. They meet in Paris years later, when they are grown men and older, and join the FLN (Front de Liberation Nationale), gain supporters, and continue the revolution from France to free Algeria. The film has violence but not the blood and guts of American films and shows the atrocities perpetrated on the Algerian peoples by the French. Director Rachid Bouchareb; Jamel Debbouze, Roschdy Zem, Sami Bouajila.
~Van of Urantia*MPAA = Motion Picture Association of America
*4DFR = An alternative, 4th-Dimensional, rating is supplied by the author of this review
