The Crew (2015 film)

Last updated
The Crew
Braqueurs.jpg
Film poster
French Braqueurs
Directed by Julien Leclercq
Written bySimon Moutaïrou
Julien Leclercq
Produced byJulien Leclercq
Julien Madon
Starring Sami Bouajila
Guillaume Gouix
Youssef Hajdi
Kaaris
CinematographyPhilip Lozano
Edited byMickael Dumontier
Production
companies
Labyrinthe Films
SND Films
Distributed bySND Films
Release dates
  • 7 October 2015 (2015-10-07)(Busan)
  • 4 May 2016 (2016-05-04)(France)
Running time
81 minutes
CountryFrance
LanguageFrench
Box office$3.2 million [1]

The Crew (French : Braqueurs) is a 2015 French action thriller film directed and co-written by Julien Leclercq. [2] [3] The film is about a Parisian heist crew led by Yanis Zeri (Sami Bouajila) which specializes in well-planned robberies of armoured trucks. Although Yanis has managed to survive for years as a career criminal by a combination of his sophisticated operations, his low-profile, modest style of living, and his focus on what the team is good at, after his younger brother Amine makes a serious mistake after a recent heist that entangles them with a drug gang, the gang leader forces the crew to do a dangerous heist of a heroin shipment.

Contents

Plot

Yanis Zeri is the leader of a successful Parisian heist gang that specializes in robbing armoured trucks. The crew consists of his trusted friend Nasser, Frank (the boyfriend of his sister Nora), and his younger brother Amine. Yanis enjoys planning and carrying out complicated heists, and rather than flaunt his wealth or live luxuriously, he lives simply and launders the money he makes through friends and family members' businesses. When Yanis needs an explosives expert for a big job, Nasser introduces him to Eric, an experienced young man Nasser met in prison. Even though Eric uses OxyContin for the pain of a previous explosion wound, Nasser insists the group can trust him.

Amine has a modestly-paid role in the crew as driver, which Amine finds is not making him enough money. After a heist, when Amine is tasked with disposing all of the guns into a river, Amine keeps a pistol so he can sell it. When Amine sells the gun to a slum drug dealer, the gun is identified as one of the heist weapons by police and the dealer gets a 10 year jail term. The drug gang leader, Salif, threatens Yanis' sister and insists that Yanis repay Salif for the jailing of his dealer by doing a heist of a heroin shipment coming from Belgium.

Yanis and his crew intercept the heroin, but Nasser is killed in a gun battle. Yanis and Eric eventually deliver the drugs to Salif, however the handover degenerates into a shootout. When Yanis realizes that Salif has taken Yanis' mother and Eric's girlfriend as hostages, Yanis rescues his mother and kills Salif, but by the time Eric reaches his home, he finds his girlfriend has already been killed.

As police surround Salif's apartment, Amine is arrested. Yanis prepares his family to escape to Casablanca by sea, instructing his lawyer to transfer his fortune to Morocco and tell him when his brother will be transferred from his holding cell. Yanis and his crew ambush the police van and escape with Amine, but when they get to a parking garage to use their getaway vehicle, the police open fire and a shootout ensues. Yanis provides covering fire to enable Amine and Eric to escape from the police in the parking garage. The two get on a departing city bus, and watch as Yanis walks slowly out of the parking lot, where he is shot by a young police officer. The film ends with Amine and Eric arriving in a Morocco port on an old fishing boat.

Cast

Reception

John DeFore of The Hollywood Reporter calls it a "...better than average cops-and-robbers movie carried by its leading man's understated cool." and while it "...doesn't bubble up to the top level of its genre, it supplies enough pleasure and attitude to satisfy fans of post-Besson Gallic action." [4]

Related Research Articles

<i>Gone in 60 Seconds</i> (2000 film) 2000 American action film directed by Dominic Sena

Gone in 60 Seconds is a 2000 American action heist film starring Nicolas Cage, Angelina Jolie, Giovanni Ribisi, Christopher Eccleston, Robert Duvall, Vinnie Jones, Delroy Lindo, Chi McBride, and Will Patton. The film was directed by Dominic Sena, written by Scott Rosenberg, and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. The film is a loose remake of the 1974 H. B. Halicki film of the same name.

<i>Havoc</i> (2005 film) 2005 film by Barbara Kopple

Havoc is a 2005 crime drama film directed by Barbara Kopple and written by Stephen Gaghan and Jessica Kaplan. It stars Anne Hathaway, Bijou Phillips, and Mike Vogel, with Shiri Appleby, Freddy Rodriguez, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Channing Tatum, Michael Biehn, and Laura San Giacomo appearing in supporting roles. The film follows the lives of wealthy Los Angeles teenagers whose exposure to hip hop culture inspires them to imitate the gangster lifestyle and engage in slum tourism. They run into trouble when they encounter a gang of drug dealers, discovering they are not as street-wise as they had thought.

<i>The Basketball Diaries</i> (film) 1995 film by Scott Kalvert

The Basketball Diaries is a 1995 American biographical crime drama film. The movie deals with drug addiction and its unfavorable outcome in lives of common people. Directed by Scott Kalvert in his feature directorial debut and based on an autobiographical novel by the same name written by Jim Carroll. It tells the story of Carroll's teenage years as a promising high school basketball player and writer who develops an addiction to heroin. Distributed by New Line Cinema, The Basketball Diaries stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Carroll, along with Bruno Kirby, Lorraine Bracco, Ernie Hudson, Patrick McGaw, James Madio, Michael Imperioli, and Mark Wahlberg in supporting roles.

Young Boys Incorporated, also known as Y.B.I., was a major drug organization in Detroit, Michigan, who were among the first African American drug cartels to operate on inner-city street corners. The Young Boys were innovative, opening franchises in other cities, promoting brand names, and unleashing extreme brutality to frighten away rivals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Omar Little</span> Character from The Wire

Omar Devone Little is a fictional character on the HBO crime drama series The Wire, portrayed by Michael K. Williams. He is a notorious Baltimore stick-up man, who frequently robs street-level drug dealers. He is legendary around the inner city for his characteristic duster, under which he hides his shotgun, large caliber handgun, and bulletproof vest, as well as for his facial scar and his whistling of "The Farmer in the Dell" when stalking targets. Omar's homosexual character is based on the heterosexual Baltimore area robber and hitman Donnie Andrews. Andrews served 18 years in prison after murdering a drug dealer. Andrews was married to Francine Boyd, who inspired the miniseries The Corner on HBO.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bodie Broadus</span> Character from The Wire

Preston "Bodie" Broadus is a fictional character on the HBO drama series The Wire, played by actor J. D. Williams. Bodie is initially a rough, low-level drug dealer, but matures throughout the series and slowly rises through the ranks. Bodie is an intelligent and disciplined lieutenant, showing strong loyalty to the Barksdale Organization even after most of its members are imprisoned or killed.

Bubbles (<i>The Wire</i>) Fictional character from The Wire

Reginald "Bubbles" Cousins is a fictional character on the HBO drama The Wire, played by actor Andre Royo. Bubbles is a recovering heroin addict. His real name is not revealed until a fourth-season episode when he is called "Mr. Cousins" and in the fifth-season premiere when he is called "Reginald". Bubbles has a son named KeyShawn, who lives with his mother. He is nicknamed "Bubbles" because when he is in a heroin-induced stupor, he tends to make bubbles with his spit.

Poot (<i>The Wire</i>) Character from The Wire

Malik "Poot" Carr is a fictional character in the HBO drama The Wire, played by actor Tray Chaney. Poot is a drug dealer in the Barksdale Organization who slowly rises through the ranks. He eventually leaves the drug trade after it causes the death of his best friend Bodie Broadus and many other of his friends. He has the distinction, along with Wee-Bey Brice, Omar Little, Bubbles, and Proposition Joe, of being one of the only characters in the drug trade to appear in every season.

Robert Germaine, Sr. was an American drug trafficker, burglar, and freelance writer in New York City.

The Wonderland Gang was a group of drug dealers involved in the Los Angeles cocaine trade during the late 1970s and early 1980s; their home base was located on Wonderland Avenue in the Laurel Canyon neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. On July 1, 1981, three members and one associate of the gang died in the Wonderland murders.

The Barksdale Organization is a fictional drug-dealing gang on the television series The Wire. Many of the characters featured in season one of The Wire belong to this organization. Season 1 largely deals with the Baltimore Police Department setting up a Major Crimes Unit to investigate the Barksdale Organization, led by Avon Barksdale who is portrayed as the most powerful drug kingpin in Baltimore.

The East Harlem Purple Gang was a gang and organized crime group in New York City consisting of Italian-American hit-men and heroin dealers who were semi-independent from the Italian-American Mafia and, according to federal prosecutors, dominated heroin distribution in East Harlem, Italian Harlem, and the Bronx during the 1970s and early 1980s. Though mostly independent of the Mafia and not an official Mafia crew, the gang was originally affiliated with and worked with the Lucchese crime family and later with the Bonanno crime family and Genovese crime family. It developed its "closest ties" with the Genovese family, and its remnants or former members became part of the Genovese family's 116th Street Crew.

The Independent Soldiers is an organized crime group based in British Columbia, Canada that is engaged in organized crime across the nation and in Canadian prisons.

<i>Walk on Fire</i> (film) 1988 [[Cinema of Hong Kong|Hong Kong]] film

Walk on Fire is a 1988 Hong Kong action film directed by Norman Law and starring Andy Lau and Cherie Chung.

<i>The Connection</i> (2014 film) 2014 French-Belgian crime film

The Connection is a 2014 action crime thriller film directed by Cédric Jimenez and produced by Alain Goldman. The film was inspired by the events of the French Connection in the 1970s, starring Jean Dujardin as police magistrate Pierre Michel (juge) and Gilles Lellouche as Gaëtan "Tany" Zampa, a drug gang ringleader. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on 10 September 2014.

Gangs in Liverpool have been in existence since the early-19th century. There were also various sectarian 'political' gangs based in and around the city during this period. During the 1960s and 1970s, crime in Liverpool mainly focused on theft and armed-robbery. In the late 1970s, drugs became the new and most profitable way for gangs to earn money and made local criminals very wealthy in a short space of time. Liverpool’s modern organised crime centres mainly on the drug trade. Merseyside police have reported in 2023 that as many as 120 gangs are operating around Merseyside.

<i>Master Z: Ip Man Legacy</i> 2018 film by Yuen Woo-ping

Master Z: Ip Man Legacy is a 2018 Chinese martial arts film directed by Yuen Woo-ping and produced by Raymond Wong and Donnie Yen. It is a spin-off of the Ip Man film series, and takes place after the 2015 film Ip Man 3. This film stars Max Zhang, Dave Bautista, Michelle Yeoh, Tony Jaa, and Liu Yan, and was released on 21 December 2018.

<i>Earth and Blood</i> 2020 French-language film

Earth and Blood is a 2020 French action thriller film directed by Julien Leclercq and starring Sami Bouajila, Eriq Ebouaney and Samy Seghir. The film is about a violent showdown at an isolated sawmill that occurs when a young employee hides eight kilos of a gang's stolen cocaine at the mill. When the heavily armed gang members come to recover their drugs, the sawmill owner stages a last stand to protect his teenage daughter.

Desert Warrior is an upcoming film directed by Rupert Wyatt, who co-wrote the screenplay with Erica Beeney, David Self, and Gary Ross. The film stars Anthony Mackie and Aiysha Hart.

<i>Ganglands</i> 2021 French TV series or program

Ganglands is a French action crime drama television series created by Hamid Hlioua and Julien Leclercq. The first season of the series premiered on Netflix on 24 September 2021 with six episodes. The second season premiered on 17 February 2023, also with six episodes. The series shares the title of Leclercq's 2015 film Braqueurs, but while both feature Sami Bouajila as the lead robber, they share no characters or storylines.

References

  1. "Braqueurs". Box Office Mojo .
  2. ""Braqueurs" : Sami Bouajila prend les armes". Le Parisien . 4 May 2016.
  3. "'Braqueurs': Marrakech Review". The Hollywood Reporter . 12 December 2015.
  4. DeFore, John (12 December 2015). "'Braqueurs': Marrakech Review". www.hollywoodreporter.com. Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 24 July 2019.