Steve Rose 

Free Men – review

Free Men takes the form of a semi-fictionalised thriller about the role of North Africans in the French Resistance, writes Steve Rose
  
  

Free Men
War thriller … Tahar Rahim in Free Men. Photograph: Tamalet Christine Photograph: Tamalet Christine/PR

There are gaps to be filled in second-world-war history, and this is one: the role of North Africans in the French Resistance. Free Men takes the form of a semi-fictionalised thriller, headed by Tahar Rahim (pictured), who so impressed in A Prophet. He's more profiteer here: an immigrant wheeler-dealer in occupied Paris, forced by the authorities to spy on the city's mosque. Headed by a magnificently hangdog Lonsdale, the mosque is suspected of issuing false papers identifying Jews as Muslims. The realities of war and his own ethnic identity induce a change of heart in Rahim, though it's often difficult to remember there's a war on, the period is so sketchily evoked. The tension doesn't grip as it should, but it's a worthwhile reminder of a moment of Muslim-Jewish co-operation.

 

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