GIBRALTER is a wonderfully cynical French crime thriller, which sees Gilles Lellouche's stocky ex-con running a bar on the Rock in the 1980s which is making a loss. Thankfully Tahar Rahim's customs agent is there to take up the slack with cash for tips about the patrons of his bar. Gibralter is a smugglers paradise, positioned midway between Europe and North Africa. Of course the tips aren't enough and soon Lellouche is in over his head, as he ends up tangling with British law enforcement, Irish criminals and a drugs kingpin with an eye on his pretty sister. And can he really trust his cop buddies? Well, it's a French film, so no...The film is full of glorious images of stoic men protecting their gorgeous women, great Mediterranean seascapes and cynical cops engaged in bureaucratic infighting. If it all falls apart a bit at the end as everyone betrays everyone, with the climactic raid on a drugs ship lacking the dramatic intensity it needs, it doesn't matter too much because the ride to get there has been so good. Supposedly based on a true story, the film ends with a suitably dark Gallic betrayal.
Review of Gibraltar
