K.O. adds to Netflix’s punchy lineup of French action flicks
The French keep knocking out punchy action films for Netflix. Add these four to your watchlist.
A new film just landed on Netflix with the hopes of kickstarting a UFC fighter’s acting career. And it might just work, not only because he turns out to be a watchable actor, but because the film itself is yet another punchy French action flick currently populating the streaming platform.
Get a whiff of France’s latest slab of Netflix action as well as similar bone-crunchers from the country of love to add to your Flicks watchlist.
K.O.
As short, sharp, and straightforward as its title suggests, filmmaker Antoine Blossier delivers the kind of no-frills thrills that would’ve made a killing for video rental stores back in the ‘90s. UFC fighter Bastien, played by real UFC fighter Ciryl Gane, lives with the guilt of unintentionally killing his opponent during a cage fight. The deceased’s wife demands Bastien find her missing son, who went wayward after his father’s death and now finds himself in too deep with a maniacal mob.
Gane, an absolute mountain of a man, gets by on his physicality and ability to hold his own in the film’s muscular, tightly choreographed fight scenes. But he also nimbly contrasts his size with palpable softness, convincingly feeling like a man midway through a reconciliation of his past. It gives the character just a bit more for audiences to lean into, which makes it even more satisfying when he chooses to go full grizzly.
Gane is aided nicely by Alice Belaïdi as cop-on-the-loose Kenza, who’s half his size but wields a police baton like a ninja, and a brigade of bad guys so ridiculously evil, you can’t help but want to see Bastien flatten them.
Lost Bullet trilogy
Vehicular action flick Lost Bullet smashed its way onto Netflix as a semi-antidote to the overstuffed CGI buffoonery that the Fast & Furious franchise morphed into. Running at a lean 92 minutes with an emphasis on practical set pieces, director Guillaume Pierret punched out a pacey story about an ex-crim trying to go straight who suddenly has to prove his innocence for a murder he didn’t commit. His salvation? You guessed it: a lost bullet.
The film’s success kicked off a trilogy, with Flicks’ Daniel Rutledge championing the sequel: “Lost Bullet 2 is super straightforward and lean at 98 minutes, with car chases that are really well put together for serious viewer gratification.”
The third film, Last Bullet, arrived just a month ago as of writing. This one has a helicopter.
The Stronghold
This 2020 crime flick dives heavily into a morally murky true story of a group of cops, working the beat in one of Marseille’s most notoriously dangerous areas, who regularly use their job as justification for crossing certain lines. We’ve seen these systemic issues presented in films before, but The Stronghold takes it in a compellingly different direction when the system turns on the crooked cops its created.
So far, so drama-y, but where’s the action? Never fear—the film’s centrepiece sequence is a total nail-biter which sees the not-so-clean policemen enter the most high-risk anti-cop neighbourhood as it slowly floods with people aching for an excuse to swarm a bunch of officers.
It’s the biggest, baddest action scene in the film, with the third act careening into the legal ramifications of this whole mess. It’s well worth it though; director Cédric Jimenez elegantly side steps any clean resolutions, choosing instead to leave the audiences pondering on a merciless machine some call “justice.”
Athena
This cinematic street war blockbuster grabs your attention immediately with the opening sequence, a breathlessly captivating 10-minute oner that starts with a full-blown raid on a police station before tailing a high-speed getaway then settling into the fortified neighbourhood where the rest of the film takes place. It’s a big, whopping taste of what director Romain Gavras dishes out for a full, engrossing 100 minutes.
From an action standpoint, Athena is muscular, weaponising long and strategic takes to keep the viewer locked into the escalating chaos of the situation. As a social statement drama, it proves just as potent, showcasing the harrowing chaos that can erupt in a modern world where police brutality, political divides, and devious hate groups remain ever-present.
All the action sequences hit hard, but nothing in the film hits harder than the ending.
