Netflix AKA assessment: Budding action star Alban Lenoir excels again

Over the previous few years, action followers have been handled to a run of strong French programming on Netflix. Athena was the most effective films of 2022, Julien Leclercq’s Sentinelle is a strong darkish Olga Kurylenko thriller, Ganglands (and the film it was primarily based on, Braquers) are wonderful crime fare, and Lost Bullet and its sequel outdo even the Fast and Furious franchise in terms of explosive vehicular action.

The newest entry on this burgeoning scene is AKA, a brand new Netflix pickup that stars Alban Lenoir as Adam Franco, a extremely expert special-ops agent confronted with one in all his most harmful assignments but. Franco is implanted undercover on the safety group of a infamous crime lord (notorious soccer legend Eric Cantona, a troublesome man as soon as suspended from the game for kicking a fan). Franco makes an enormous impression after rapidly rendering the pinnacle of safety unconscious after a verbal spat, and he turns into the bodyguard for the crime lord’s bullied son, instructing the kid easy methods to combat and defend himself.

Alban Lenoir kneels down to a child’s eye level as they practice on a child’s boxing dummy in AKA.

It’s just about “Man on Fire lite” — one other film that appears impressed by Philip Nicholson’s 1980 novel Man on Fire. AKA isn’t an official adaptation of the e-book, like Élie Chouraqui’s 1987 French film model or Tony Scott’s stylized 2004 thriller. But it has loads in frequent with them: It’s a darkish crime story a couple of grizzled operative bonding with a baby, and the lengths that operative will go when the kid is in peril. While it lacks Scott’s directorial aptitude, AKA has one thing few different films have: Alban Lenoir.

Lenoir began his profession as a stunt performer, engaged on quite a lot of French productions and on Pierre Morel’s 2008 game-changer Taken. After a collection of small components, he bought his massive break in 2015’s French Blood, which screened at TIFF and noticed Lenoir nominated for a Lumières Award for Most Promising New Actor.

A number of years after that got here Lost Bullet, a tightly contained vehicular thriller the place Lenoir performs Lino, a grasp mechanic and thief pulled right into a scheme by crooked cops and framed for homicide. In order to show his innocence, he has to search out the final remaining piece of proof from the crime — a single misplaced bullet.

Alban Lenoir makes a fist with his hand on an open car door in Lost Bullet 2 — Lenoir as Lino in Lost Bullet 2

468*600 — Lenoir as Lino in Lost Bullet 2

Lost Bullet and Lost Bullet 2 are among the many finest action films of the last decade, utilizing easy narratives to assemble elaborate, kinetic set items. The fistfights are brutal, the automobile chases are electrical (generally actually), and it’s a turbo-charged action collection harking back to the early Fast and Furious films.

But Lenoir is the key sauce to those film’s recipes. He at all times brings a relaxed, intense, grounded power to his roles, with a face that screams, “This guy has been in a lot of fights.” Lenoir strikes like an athlete and hits like a truck, and whereas he performs extremely succesful characters expert in violence, he imbues them with an Everyman power. His characters get hit a lot, and are often exhausted by the grueling fights they wind up in. In AKA, there’s a humorous scene the place Adam merely needs to take a nap, however retains getting interrupted by notifications and directions from his handler (who he communicates with by means of PlayStation voice chat, players).

Alban Lenoir walks through a long hallway while holding an assault rifle in AKA.

Alban Lenoir pushes a man down into a table filled with chemistry equipment in AKA.

Lenoir can be a author, and he co-wrote the screenplays for each Lost Bullet films and AKA. AKA sees him reuniting with director and co-writer Morgan S. Dalibert, the cinematographer on the Lost Bullet films. (The two additionally beforehand labored collectively on 2005’s New World, Dalibert’s directorial debut.) Some of the action scenes stand out in AKA, significantly a posh brawl in a drug den and a combat exterior a membership proven by means of CCTV. Dalibert additionally repeatedly frames action in the back of lengthy, slim photographs, including depth to among the sequences, and he takes enjoyment of telegraphing objects that might be utilized in a combat — lingering on a hook on a wall to get viewers enthusiastic about how will probably be brutally deployed.

AKA’s overarching narrative by no means actually gels — there’s an enormous conspiracy principle floating across the edges of the film, but it surely isn’t given sufficient time to essentially come into focus. The film’s tempo additionally slows because it stops to offer some characters extra particular backstories, which is a disgrace, as a result of the actors had been already filling in quite a lot of these gaps by means of their performances. Thankfully, Lenoir’s distinctive presence helps elevate the film to strong streaming fare.

AKA is at its finest when it showcases Alban Lenoir, Action Star, fairly than its personal standing as a much less trendy Man on Fire. It’s nonetheless price watching for those who’re within the new wave of French action cinema, and one in all its most intriguing stars. But for those who haven’t seen the Lost Bullet films but, undoubtedly prioritize these for wonderful Lenoir action.