Directed by Pierre Laffargue
French director Pierre Laffargue's crowd pleasing thriller "Black" hearkens back to the glory of "Shaft" but this time without the extravagant suits and with a healthy dose of inner city, African flair.
After bungling a stick up in Paris, small time crook Black, tipped off to the presence of a stash of blood diamonds in the vault of a poorly guarded bank in his native Senegal, returns home to attempt the big score. What Black believes will be an easy take, however, soon becomes a far more complicated affair when a number of parties, from an undercover Interpol agent to a band of Russian mercenaries, get involved. In over his head, Black must find a way to survive and keep his hands on the diamonds.
Laffargue and members of his crew attended the screening of "Black" at Fantasia and you could tell that they all had loads of fun making this movie, a fact that comes out loud and clear to the viewer. "Black" is fun to watch, an unabashed crowd pleaser that nevertheless doesn't worry about pandering to its audience, choosing to play by its own rules rather than follow the standard formula most thrillers tend to. The action, set in the streets of Dakkar, is both exciting and slightly disorienting, the cityscape being unfamiliar to most filmgoers (myself included) and the chase scenes, often featuring multiple parties looking to put their mits on the diamonds, are exhilirating, butressed by a head bobbingly good soundtrack. MC Jean Gab, a freanch rap artist who plays the charismatic Black, looks nothing less than comfortable in this role and he seems to have truly tuned into the direction Laffargue was going with this film, his performance a rollicking mix of muscle and charm. "Black' takes an odd turn towards African mysticism in its third act, an interesting choice to say the least by Laffargue and one which was likely offputting to many viewers who were perfectly content to continue watching Black run around the streets of Dakkar, eluding bad guys. I personally enjoyed Laffargue's detour into the surreal, if nothing else than because it's a gutsy choice to make in a film like "Black" where everything good have so easily been formulaic.
On the whole, "Black" is a film made to be enjoyed and enoyable it certainly is.
2 comments:
You were at the screening with the director and some of the crew?
It was screening as part of a film festival in town. The director and lead actor made the trip from France to present the movie, which I thought was pretty cool. For being French, they actually seemed pretty decent. Hahaha!
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