Henry Barnes 

A Gang Story – review

We could have done with the abridged version of French gangster Edmond "Mamon" Vidal's criminal career, writes Henry Barnes
  
  


French cop-turned-director Olivier Marchal's flashback-heavy crime drama is very loosely based on the memoirs of real-life gangster Edmond "Mamon" Vidal. Here the ageing Mamon (played gracefully by Gérard Lanvin) flits between reflecting on his time as leader of the Lyons gang – a crew who pulled off a series of daring heists in the early 70s – and trying to protect his lifelong friend Serge (Tchéky Karyo), who's on the run from a rival mob boss. But there's little heat on Marchal's mean streets: we don't get to know any character other than Mamon, so his sense of betrayal is justified by default and his revenge is played out methodically over decades of boring murder. There's one code at play here: a hood's gotta do what a hood's gotta do. Unfortunately, we gotta watch him do all of it.

 

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