Badly needs context

Rating: 4/10 (9 April 2005)

Rather weird, really. The film leaps straight into the Algerian insurrection without providing background or any depiction of the French rule of Algeria, or even of the Algerian people's demand for freedom, and thus makes the Algerian National Liberation Front seem like a criminal organization dedicated mainly to killing policemen. The French ultimately catch up with the Algerians in brutality, and the camera fairly clearly sympathizes with the latter, but the film makes no real attempt to evaluate the justice of the rebel's demands or the necessity of their resorting to terrorist methods.
The viewer who does not begin with the notion that anyone connected to a colonial power deserves to be killed is left inclined to sympathize with the French, simply because most of the murders in the first hour or so of the film are committed by the Algerians, but one assumes that the story leading up to the first terrorist attacks would provide some justification for them. Not seeing the history, one can't judge.