Stream It Or Skip It: ‘AKA’ on Netflix, a Modestly Satisfying French Action-Thriller About a Bruiser and the Little Boy he Befriends

Those of us who grunted our way through one or both of the Lost Bullet movies may raise an eyebrow of interest in the general direction of AKA (now on Netflix). The French action-thriller boasts two of the Bullet boys, star Alban Lenoir, who also co-writes with Morgan S. Dalibert, who shifts out of the cinematographer’s chair to direct his first feature. They shift from the goofiness of their previous films to a more serious crime-drama about a special-ops gentleman who isn’t particularly GENTLE in the way he goes about his business. But he’s absolutely a MAN, because he can take a bullet and shrug it off like he merely stubbed a toe. In other words, bear down for some brutality, folks!

AKA: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Adam Franco (Lenoir) is a brute: Big and hulking with post-neanderthal features, he’s a no-wound-a-staple-gun-and-some-duct-tape-can’t-fix kind of fella. We meet him as he’s disguised as a prisoner and led into an underground lair by Tunisian terrorists. Well, he knows he’s disguised as a prisoner – the terrorists think he’s just a regular prisoner-prisoner. And it’s likely the last think they’ll ever have thunk, because Adam makes short work of them via gun, knife and fist, then goes about his real business, which I won’t reveal, but let’s just say it sure seems like some of the blackest black ops ever. 

The aforementioned has nothing to do with the majority of the plot here, but it does establish that Adam is a sociopath who can gun down a few dozen people and then go home for a peaceful little nappy-poo. Maybe breakfast tastes better after littering a landscape with corpses? Anyway, his next assignment per the muckity-mucks – you know, ministers and commanders whose homes have kitchens the size of small airplane hangars – is to flush out a Sudanese warlord (Kevin Layne) who’s the prime suspect in a Paris bombing. The path to success is, of course, convoluted, because it involves getting a gig as a thug for a local gangster, Victor Pastore (Eric Cantona), who’s a business associate of the suspected terrorist. Adam makes his presence significant among Pastore’s squad by rising to the challenge of the biggest goon among all the guy’s goons, and nearly killing said biggest goon with a single punch to the throat. Perhaps it goes without saying that Adam is a man of few words; he speaks with his FISTS, and loudly at that.

The dynamic in the Pastore household is, in a word, problematic. The boss’ wife Natalya (Sveva Alviti) runs his nightclub brothels; her teenage daughter Helene (Lucille Guillaume) and young son Joe (Noe Chabbat) are from a prior relationship, so Victor treats them like crap. Adam and fellow hired gun Pee Wee (Saidou Camara) do some good old-fashioned violent business for the boss; meanwhile, Adam secretly reports back to a couple of allies monitoring him in a stakeout van. We learn a couple things about Adam, including a very dark moment from his past, and the very impressive fact that he was once shot five times from point-blank range and lived, and has the scars to prove it. (One imagines he took a day, maybe two, to convalesce.) But things get especially sticky when Adam earns little Joe’s admiration by flicking a school bully in the nose really hard. That earns Adam an invite to Joe’s birthday party. And he shows up! With a gift! It’s a punching bag! I guess this monosyllabic slab has a heart somewhere under all that meat after all. And it just might make this gig even more complicated than it already is.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: AKA is a borderline-generic French action-thriller that’s sort of a blend of The Transporter with The Professional. And like so many modern action-thrillers, it likely wouldn’t exist without John Wick.

Performance Worth Watching: Boilerplate characters abound in AKA, but anyone with a modicum of fascination for strong, silent types will appreciate Lenoir’s sternfaced mug masking a gooey center with a soft spot for scrawny little dudes like Joe. 

Memorable Dialogue: Little Joe notices a shiner by Adam’s eye, and takes the big guy to task with a bit of comic irony: “You should really learn how to fight.” 

Sex and Skin: Adam leaves a roomful of skimpily dressed dancing women to beat up a half-dozen mooks outside; Adam murders a whole slew of faceless criminal doofuses in a brothel while one paying customer doesn’t even stop goin’ at it with a lady.

Our Take: With AKA, Lenoir and Dalibert have a little something to say about political corruption, and I’m torn between appreciating their desire to do more than just string together a series of ripping action sequences, and wishing they’d just strung together a series of ripping action sequences. The plot at times seems more convoluted than it’s worth, and deep into the third act, we’re expecting an Adam rampage and given a walloping heap of sentiment. And it’s functional. But is it fun? It could’ve been more fun, is the lingering feeling here.

Those late developments inspire a bit of moral wrestling that’s a little too late in coming, but better late than never, I guess. Otherwise, the film is a familiar navigation of backalleys and drug dens, with the antihero protagonist proving his mettle as a nigh-unstoppable action figure, and a bit of the Pastore family’s domestic dysfunction thrown in for color. It sidesteps some of the monster-man/little-kid cliches you might expect, but also leaves you wanting more of that humanist dynamic. At two hours, it’s plenty of movie, and it’ll hold your interest. But it’s not going to blow you away, either.

Our Call: AKA does action quite well, and drama not as well as it could, and intrigue and suspense not particularly well at all. Yet I say STREAM IT, because it’s good enough in performance and direction to satisfy.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.