A GANG STORY (Les Lyonnais) (2011)

Genre: Drama
Director: Olivier Marchal
Cast: Gérard Lanvin, Tchéky Karyo, Daniel Duval, Dimitri Storoge, Patrick Catalifo, François Levantal
RunTime: 1 hr 42 mins
Rating: TBA
Released By: Golden Village
Official Website: http://les-lyonnais.gaumont.fr/

Screening Dates: 14 - 15, 16 - 18 September 2012 (Mini French Film Festival)

Synopsis:  After growing up in a poor gypsy camp, Edmond Vidal, aka Momon, has retained a sense of family, unfailing loyalty and pride in his origins. Most of all, he has remained friends with Serge Suttel, with whom he first discovered prison life - for stealing cherries. The two of them inevitably got involved in organized crime. The team they formed, the Gang Des Lyonnais, made them the most notorious armed robbers of the early 1970s. Their irresistible rise ended in 1974 with a spectacular arrest. Today, as he nears 60, Momon would like to forget that part of his life. He has found peace by retiring from the "business". He tends to his wife Janou, who suffered so in the past, and to his children and grandchildren, all of whom have great respect for this man of simple and universal values, so clear-headed and full of kindness. But then Serge Suttel, who has disowned nothing of his past, comes back into the picture.

Movie Review:

“What is the price of loyalty?” asks former cop-turned-filmmaker Olivier Marchal in his latest crime thriller, loosely based on the real-life exploits of mobster Edmond Vidal (or more often referred to in the movie as Momon). For the uninitiated, Vidal and his gang were responsible for some of the most audacious heists in the Lyon region back in the 1970s – hence their moniker which is also the French title of this film. That should make for a riveting story – think Michael Mann’s ‘Public Enemies’ – but this at best solidly-mounted film ends up making less of an impression than you would expect it to. 

Instead of telling the story in chronological order, Marchal – who also scripted the film with Edgar Marie from Vidal’s own book ‘Pour une poignee de cerises’ – begins in his character’s twilight years, as the sixty-something Vidal (Gerard Lanvin) is made to revisit his brutish ways when his longtime friend cum partner Serge (Tcheky Karyo) is arrested by the police. To bust Serge free, he hires a group of younger thugs whose unrestrained means appal even him; but that’s just the start of his troubles when he finds out that Serge may be mixed up in more serious business than he thought.  

As he realises his follies in the days following Serge’s violent breakout, Marchal frequently flashes back to their younger days, chronicling the friendship sealed in blood, sweat and bullets. A gypsy accorded little status or respect by his peers, the young Momon is rescued in a typical schoolyard bullying scuffle by Serge – and a bond is formed when both teenagers are unjustly imprisoned for ten years after caught stealing a crate of cherries. In response, both sign up as lackeys upon their release to a crime boss whose criminal acts are used to finance the lefties in their political ambitions.

A more ambitious director might have explored the connection between crime and politics in the 1970s, but Marchal merely gives it a cursory mention. Likewise, Marchal glosses over the audacity of the Lyons’ formative years one heist after another leading up to their eventual arrest, and too little time is spent fleshing out the personalities of each of the individual characters – especially supporting acts Christo and a key player later on referred to as the Greek.

Marchal fares much better in the events of the present day, opting for a measured and character-driven approach to depict the price that their lives of crime have exacted on their families as well as on themselves – and the final twist reminiscent of a Greek tragedy is undeniably poignant.  In particular, Marchal succeeds in questioning the subject of loyalty and honour among criminals, as the fiercely devoted Momon is forced to confront the realisation that someone in his tight-knit Lyons gang might have snitched to the police in their past heydays and betrayed Serge in present time.

The helmer of past gritty cop flicks like ‘36’ and ‘MR73’ also paints a realistic picture of the line between cops and mobsters, showing the lengths to which both are willing to go to get what they need to out of each other – and it is a sobering portrait how the same division of good and evil cannot be so neatly applied to one side or the other. For that too, Marchal has a great lead in Lanvin, his well-nuanced performance of a man torn between his own principles and that of the world in which he lives in always riveting. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t give as much space to the other characters, though veterans Karyo and Patrick Catalifo (as the detective on Serge’s tail) make the most of their limited roles.

With such an intriguing source material, it’s inevitable that one expects more out of Marchal’s ‘A Gang Story’ – but the film delivers only adequately, lacking the thrills and pizzazz that a more experienced helmer like Michael Mann could have brought. Fans of the genre will also recognise the references to other classics – in particular, the opening scene where Momon’s grandchild receives his first baptism in a church is reminiscent of a similar sequence in ‘The Godfather’. You won’t find a classic here though, just a relatively well-told drama of crime and consequence that is good enough to entertain while it lasts. 

Movie Rating:

(Solid, but by no means remarkable, tale of French mob legend Edmond Vidal that could do well with more of its character’s pizzazz and edginess)

Review by Gabriel Chong