The English title of this French period-set revenge drama, as possibly to be expected, is Gangs of Paris.
Unluckily, a title like that demands comparison, and indeed this fairly
trashy import comes across above all as a poorly made and overly
blatant Paris-set riff on Scorsese's Gangs of New York (2002 / trailer),
which itself isn't exactly the best Scorsese film out there. Only,
instead of a tough Irish male (a miscast Leonardo DiCaprio of Critters 3 [1991 / trailer]) seeking revenge on gang leader Bill the Butcher (a scenery-chewing Daniel Day-Lewis of Eversmile New Jersey [1989 / trailer]) for the slaying of his father, we get a tough French woman named Billie (an impenetrable Alice Isaaz of The Lodger a.k.a. Messe basse [2020 / trailer]) seeking revenge from Apache gang leader Jésus (bland Niels Schneider of the much better The Most Assassinated Woman in the World [2018] and the pointless The Howling Reborn [2011 / trailer]) for the death of her brother.
Trailer to
Apaches:
That said, if Scorsese's lesser film is a highly flawed but intriguing [big budget] artistic mess, Apaches,
French director Romain Quirot's second feature-length genre film —
three years earlier he made the WTF sci-fi smorgasbord that is Last Journey of Paul W.R. (2020 / trailer)
— is a mildly watchable, underdeveloped, and oddly unsatisfying
[average budget] genre flick that, ultimately, meanders from nowhere to
nowhere. Its saving grace is, in the end, its entertainingly audacious
and ridiculous opening scene — of a young Billie (Chloé Peillex), her
brother and fellow orphan Paulie robbing Sarah Bernhardt (Rossy de Palma
of Acción Mutante [1993]) — and the movie's notably bleak climax. In between, well, meh.
Maurice Chevalier sings I'm an Apache,
from Rouben Mamoulian's Love Me Tonight (1932 / trailer):
The
movie's original title, like that of the titular gang of the movie, is
taken from the name given to the semi-organized gang criminal subculture
of Belle Époque Paris (say, roughly 1870 to 1914). In regards to film's
setting, despite the occasionally questionable CGI the scenography of
the movie is rather pleasant if often overly artificial, though in
regards to the last the mise-en-scène is never as visually artistically
successful and satisfying as, say, the fabulous fantasies that are
Jean-Pierre Jeunet und Marc Caro's Delicatessen (1991 / trailer) or City of Lost Children (1995 / trailer), both better movies, though Apaches does occasionally feel almost as fanciful.
Jeunet's shadow actually palely shines over the movie, especially once his house actor Dominique Pinon (of Dark Stories to Survive the Night [2021], Dante 01 [2008], Le Queloune [2008], Diva [1981 / trailer]
and so much more) shows up in a minor part as Apache bartender Gueule
de Bois. And while one is hard placed to call Quirot's direction bad, as
it does display moments of enjoyable playfulness — the B&W
escalating violence caught on camera at the photo shoot at the Paris
Exposition is particularly inspired — it never attains a consistent
visual tone of the average Jeunet film, which, truth be told, are
usually better scripted and acted as well.
The
adult Billie, [wrongfully] sent to jail as a child for the murder of
her brother, joins the Apaches once released aiming to kill those who
done her wrong, but quickly loses her way, though why is not that clear.
She kills a bartender-nobody formerly connected to the gang, and later,
once an Apache, kills the former policeman who sent her up, in a scene
that makes one laugh despite all the blood and violence: Billie catches
the eye of the cop, a womanizer, at a public cinema and then they both
stand up and make out in front of the audience before she brutally stabs
him to death in front of everybody. Other than that, however, she
starts going with the Apache party flow, apparently enjoying the
excesses of alcohol and drugs and violence, possibly even falling in
love with gang leader Jesus, though one can only wonder why as he
severely lacks charisma and, despite the perfunctory few scenes of
doling out alms to the poor, remains an unlikable and kill-happy alpha
male. (Babes like them alpha males.)
But
Billie is not the only one that willy-nillies around. The actions of
minor characters like the half-blind fallen priest Marius (Bruno Lochet
Marius of Dante 01 [2008]) or the adult Paulie (Rod Paradot of Lost Bullet [2020 / trailer])
reveal an inconsistency that comes across as screenplay convenience, as
does the act of self-sacrifice by former bad gal turned nun, Nadja
(Armelle Abibou of Savage State [2019 / trailer]).
As a viewer, one often finds themselves asking, "What?" instead of
being impressed by the staging or visuals, despite the cinematic
flourishes (e.g., slow motion or temporally inappropriate music, not to
mention plush costumes and sets) that scream "Pay attention and be
impressed!" (The first, we did, the second, we weren't.)
Throughout Apaches,
one senses that there is a good film struggling to get out, but the
uneven pacing, disappearing motivation, narrative simplicity, and
general lack of direction causes the move to lose its way, with the
result that it remains strangely alienating and unsatisfying. Oddly, Apaches manages
to feel both like it is too long for what it is and as if it needed
another hour or so to develop and flesh out the deep aspects missing.
There are, of course, much worse movies out there — peruse a wasted life
and you'll find write-ups about hundreds of worse movies — but when a
movie that holds as much potential as this one does is squandered so
thoroughly, one cannot help but get annoyed. Apaches is not worth
retrieving (as we did) from the cutout pile, and is really not worth
searching out — but maybe, on the other hand, some future movie of
director Romain Quirot might be. He displays a good eye, in any event;
what he still needs, however, is better control of his actors and
narrative.
Has nothing to do with Apaches –
Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Romain Segaud's short
Two Snails Set Off (2018):
Lastly, a public service message from a wasted life:
