The Crime? Set in the Ghetto suburbs of the beautiful city of Paris, La Haine demonstrates to viewers how crime and violence are rife even in the city of love. The film follows a day in the lives of three youngsters dabbling in minor crime to get by in one of Paris rich suburb. The tension between the youth of the estate and the policemen is the divisive theme in the movie the questionable methods used by the police in the film mean they are just as criminal as the drug addled boys, if not even more so. The dichotomy between the police and the boys is well represented by director Mathieu Kassovitz decision to shoot in black-and-white. Why Is It Great? La Haine really is a crime-film-lovers film. The sequence with Vinz (Vincent Cassel) staring into the camera defiantly asking c'est à moi que tu parles? (you talkin to me?) is lifted straight from Taxi Driver while the repeated shots of a poster emblazoned with le monde est à vous (the world is yours) obviously takes us back to Scarface. By including these references to the great crime actors like Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino we invited to see a far more realistic insight into a world of crime Tony Montanas decadent palace is nowhere to be seen. The boys languish in the gutter peddling drugs only to make enough to get by their criminal activity doesnt automatically result in the untold riches of Scarface, despite what the crime movies of the past may have told them. Aside from this, La Haine packs one of the most powerful endings on this list which will leave you feeling cold.
Hailing from South East London, Sam Heard is an aspiring writer and recent graduate from the University of Warwick. Sam's favourite things include energy drinks, late nights spent watching the UFC with his girlfriend and annihilating his friends at FIFA.
