French film Black is a rare thing; a French action film that isnt produced or written by Luc Besson. In fact the only connection to Besson is the films star MC Jean Gab1 who appeared in both District 13 movies. Black, released on Blu-ray and DVD on Monday, marks the directorial debut of Pierre Laffargue and is produced by Marco Cherqui who also produced last years break out hit A Prophet. The film opens in Paris as an armed raid on a security van goes horribly wrong and all but one of the raiders are gunned down by police. The surviving gunman, Black played by French Hip-hop artist MC Jean Gab1, manages to escape and goes into hiding. That is until he receives a phone call from his cousin in Senegal with information about a stash of diamonds being stored in a poorly guarded bank in Dakar. Black travels to Africa with a small group of fellow thieves to pull off the heist of his criminal career. However, Black and his team are not the only ones looking to get their hands on the jewels as a crazed Russian general, a ruthless arms dealer and a corrupt Interpol agent are all out to get to the diamonds first. While the film evokes the spirit of seventies Blaxploitation classics such as Super Fly, Shaft and Truck Turner, Black is also clearly influenced by more recent gangster films and directors such as Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie. With its time hopping narrative and flourishes of style through the use of split-screens, freeze frames and the funky soundtrack, the film simply oozes cool. As with A Prophet there is an edge of realism to the action. The opening security van heist is excellently filmed as it quickly spirals out of control giving way to a shootout with the police. There is some startling stunt work during this sequence as cars explode engulfing police and members of the gang. Throughout the film there are a number of great action set pieces and gunplay that will appeal to most action junkies. While MC Jean Gab1 doesnt come close to matching the style of Richard Roundtree in Shaft he is still a strangely charismatic lead and is obviously really enjoying himself in his first proper leading role. In fact, all the characters are well formed with each member of Blacks crew having their own individual back story and introduction. Even the villains are given plenty of screen time to develop and offer a lot more than the usual one dimensional characters associated with action cinema. Black is a really enjoyable film throughout the first two thirds of its running time however it seems to totally lose its way in the final half an hour. It gets a little bogged down when it introduces themes of spiritualism and tribal rituals which just seem totally out of place upsetting the flow of the film. The films literally reptilian arms dealing villain provides the most bizarre twist leading to a climax that has more in common with a bad episode of eighties TV show Manimal than Shaft. It goes from ultra realism in the first part of the film to supernatural by the end which unfortunately I felt simply did not work and for me spoilt the balance of the entire film. It has to be one of the strangest directorial decisions I have ever seen, having said that that it is completely unpredictable which I suppose, is never a bad thing.
Quality
The Blu-ray transfer is good but quite unremarkable, presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and with choice of French Dolby Digital 5.1 or 2.0 Stereo. Opening scenes of aerial shots over Paris look great as it zooms in on a lone green truck on the way to the heist and the later sundrenched scenes in Dakar also look good. Any fine detail is generally lost in scenes where the hand held style of the camera work takes over. English subtitles are presented in white over the lower part of the picture and are clear and easy to read. The audio track is well mixed with dialogue and action scenes at consistent levels while the funked up soundtrack sounds brilliant.
Extras
The only special feature on offer with this release is the 21 second teaser trailer. Seems a shame that this is all we get, it would have been nice to get a commentary from debut director Laffargue and MC Jean Gab1. Im also surprised there are no music videos especially as MC Jean Gab1 performs the song over the closing credits. Black is available on Blu-ray from today.