24 Days (2014)

Just perfect...

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

This was a drama based on a real life kidnapping that occurred in France, in 2006. The kidnapping gang targeted Jewish males, because they erroneously thought that all Jews were rich. Performances were excellent all around. I thought the mother was a bit much at times and got on my nerves at times. I realize she was under great stress, but yelling at and berating the police officers and hostage negotiator, who are all there to help you, is not helpful and may indeed have caused them to perform at less than their best. The movie insinuates that there must have been at least a few people in the apartment complex, where the kidnappee was being held, who must have seen something, but this seemed a bit of an overreach. They may have seen something, but given that they didn't know that there had been a kidnapping, they probably had insufficient cause to alert the police.Also, the movie indicates that this was fundamentally an act of anti-semitism. I think it was primarily the act of a gang of fairly ignorant and violent people who thought they could make a quick buck because of their mistaken notion that all Jews were rich. If they had thought a different group of people were all rich, they would most likely have targeted them as well. While watching this movie, you basically vicariously experience what it's like to have a family member kidnapped, and one possible way that it could play out.

I recently viewed this movie on Netflix and was struck by the impression that a movie with a similar plot and circumstances would probably not be produced in the US or the UK. Kudos to the makers of this film who had the courage to tell a true story that most people probably were never aware of and where the characters involved do not fit a preferred template. Most foreign-made movies I've seen on Netflix often are superior to American films in both content and acting, primarily because they are devoid of Hollywood scripting/acting where characters mechanically spew their lines with no reflection of authentic human character or realism.

French screenwriter, producer and director Alexandre Arcady's seventeenth feature film which he produced and wrote with French screenwriters Antoine Lacomblez and Emilie Frèche, is an adaptation of a book from 2009 by Ruth Halimi and French author and screenwriter Emilie Frèche. It premiered in France, was shot on locations in France and is a French production. It tells the story about a mother named Ruth, a father named Didier Halimi and their son named Ilan Halimi.Distinctly and precisely directed by French filmmaker Alexandre Arcady, this quietly paced and somewhat fictional tale which is narrated interchangeably from multiple viewpoints, draws an immediately present and reflectively informative portrayal of a French police case from the late 2000s where a French-Jewish citizen and brother was kidnapped and held hostage for ransom. While notable for its versatile and atmospheric milieu depictions, distinct cinematography by cinematographer Gilles Henry, production design by production designer Tony Egry and costume design by costume designer Éric Perron, this narrative-driven and dialog-driven story about French police history and anti-Semitism which is inspired by real events which took place in Paris, France in 2006, contains a great and timely score by composer Armand Amar.This authoritatively concentrated retelling which is set in France in the 21st century and where a twenty-three-year-old human being of Moroccan origins who was taken against his will is the communicator, is impelled and reinforced by its cogent narrative structure, subtle character development, rhythmic continuity, comment by Ruth Halimi: "If my son was not Jewish, he would not be…" and the reverent acting performance by French actress, screenwriter and director Zabou Breitman. A testamentary narrative feature.

Saw this in the UK Jewish Film Festival, where we were told Arcady had a job getting this film financed. It's extremely well made and acted: if, as one reviewer wrote, it was a huge flop, it didn't deserved to be. However, box-office failure would be understandable, since the French presumably knew the story well and wanted to be entertained rather than harrowed. One thing I didn't quite understand was the judge's ruling that this was an anti-Semitic crime. Apart from the obvious, pedantic point that most of the gang were Arabs (and Semites themselves) it's obvious that their motivation was financial. This bunch of half-wits had the idea that all Jews are filthy rich, then seized a young man whose family were nowhere near able to come up with the 450,000 euros they wanted. If their motivation had been hatred of Jews they would have just tortured and killed the poor lad. As the weeks went by and their frustration grew, their behaviour got more and more violent and they even stopped feeding him. The leader of the gang was particularly repellent.