‘The Assault’ is a non-stop thriller based on a true story

Director Julien Leclercq has crafted a pulsating thriller that doesn’t give the audience a chance to breathe. From the first second to the last, The Assault is a non-stop, high-intensity drama that features lots of guns, hostages and risk-taking. The 90-minute movie serves as a crucible for a global story told on a very personal level.

Many audience members will know the outcome of this violent tale before the movie even begins. Right around the Christmas season of 1994, an Air France plane was hijacked on its way from Algeria to Paris, France. The perpetrators were a group of violent men from the Armed Islamic Group, commonly known as the GIA. With righteousness on their tongue and violence in their eyes, they boarded the plane in Algiers and began a standoff that lasted hours.

In the movie, the passengers are frightened and crying; the hijackers are yelling and seemingly in control. They hold guns and will not back down until their demands are heard and executed. While still grounded at the Algiers airport, the hijackers issue their ultimatum: France needs to release two political prisoners under house arrest, otherwise the occupants of the plane will face certain death.

The Assault meticulously recreates this hellish scenario from its beginning all the way to its bloody ending. Eventually, the Air France plane takes off and heads toward Paris, but not before stopping in Marseille for extra fuel. It is during this stopover that the French government sends its team of SWAT-like commandos (known as the GIGN) to storm the plane and save as many lives as possible.

This incident, which took place nearly two decades ago, is obviously an eerie foreshadow of future international crises involving innocent victims and violent terrorists. Leclercq’s film never exaggerates the proceedings or hits the audience over the head with parallelism. It simply serves as a document of humanity’s many facets: That in the wake of horrible circumstances, heroism can still be found. Whether it was the pilots of the plane trying to stay calm or the GIGN’s bravery of entering a deadly situation, the end result of this terrorist attack could have been far worse. Blood was spilled that day, but perhaps not as much if the French didn’t intervene.

Simply recreating the events of that fateful day would not be enough to keep audiences invigorated for 90 minutes. We need to follow the story through the eyes of a character we come to know and like. That person is Thierry (Vincent Elbaz), a dedicated GIGN member who leaves his wife and young daughter behind to lead the mission to take back the plane. We don’t get to know too many details about Thierry, but we learn enough to appreciate the sacrifice he makes for the safety of the Algerians and French onboard.

We also examine Carole (Mélanie Bernier), who quickly becomes the girl who cried wolf while trying to convince the French government to take the most appropriate steps to contain the attack. There are other characters who emerge, including diplomats and the terrorists themselves, but it’s Thierry and Carole’s dedication that wins us over.

The Assault harnesses the drama of this real-life hijacking and tries to recreate its details, not so much to entertain, but to showcase a murderous plot that seems only to gain in resonance as the peoples of the world continue to fight some 20 years later.

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

• The Assault

• In French with English subtitles

• 2012

• Directed by Julien Leclercq

• Written by Simon Moutairou and Leclercq; based on the book by Roland Môntins and Gilles Cauture

• Starring Vincent Elbaz, Grégori Derangère and Mélanie Bernier

• Running time: 91 minutes

• Rated R for violence

• Rating: