The Crew (Braqueurs)
Common Sense says
- NR
- 2015
- 81 minutes
Parents say
Kids say
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The parents' guide to what's in this movie.
What parents need to know
Parents need to know that The Crew (aka Braqueurs) is a 2015 French action thriller in which a group of expert robbers must pull off a dangerous heist for a gang of vicious drug dealers. It's in French with English subtitles. There's frequent action-movie violence: Robbers crash their cars into armored vehicles and then steal the money inside while wielding assault rifles and throwing tear gas. The robbers engage in firearm skirmishes with the drug dealers and also the police. A character is shot and killed at close range. Cars are set on fire and explode. A dog is found dead from gunshots on its side in a pool of blood. While captured at gunpoint, the main antagonist tells one of the main characters that his men have taken his family hostage and are having sex with his wife while their young daughter watches. One of the main characters is addicted to Oxycontin, is shown taking the pills. A sex scene includes bare female breasts, male buttocks. Profanity is heard, including "f--k." There's also alcohol drinking and marijuana smoking.
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What's the story?
Yanis (Sami Bouajila) leads THE CREW, a highly skilled group of Parisian bank robbers. They have recently taken things to the next level by robbing thousands of blank passports that can be sold on the black market. But when his brother makes a deal on the side with a merciless gang of drug dealers that goes wrong, Yanis is given no alternative but to make amends. The crime syndicate sends them on a mission to rob a lucrative shipment of heroin that will be entering France. They manage to get the heroin, but things go awry when they try to cross the dealers rather than complete the deal. The drug dealers attack the families of the bank robbers: Yanis' mother is taken hostage, his brother is arrested, and Yanis must now find a way to free them both while fighting back against the drug dealers and police and escape to Morocco.
Is it any good?
This is one of those action thrillers best filed under "sound and fury, signifying nothing." The Crew is enjoyable enough for its own sake, but there's nothing especially original or groundbreaking in either the action or the story. The "good guys who are bad who are fighting the bad guys who are even worse than they are" angle has been used so much by this point, it's stock. The moments of "humanizing" the lead characters by showing their vulnerabilities, coupled with the love they feel for their families, feel forced and almost obligatory, since muddying the waters through ambiguity is more the rule than the exception that it might have been when The Godfather was released, or even The Sopranos and The Wire.
Still, the action and the story itself sustain enough interest to keep the movie engaging for its brief 81-minute length. Once the fighting really starts, the momentum picks up, and even with the brief detours into basic humanity and character motivations beyond mere greed and kicks, there's enough energy and spectacle to sustain the movie to the end. But beyond that, when the movie ends, it's difficult to find anything especially memorable.
Talk to your kids about ...
Families can talk about "action thriller" movies. How does The Crew compare to other action thrillers?
How was violence a central feature of the movie? How did it move the story forward, and how was it used solely for the sake of excitement?
How did the movie show opioid addiction? Did it glamorize it, or was addiction shown to be something the character was struggling with?
Movie details
- In theaters: October 7, 2015
- On DVD or streaming: November 15, 2018
- Cast: Sami Bouajila, Guillaume Gouix, Youssef Hajdi
- Director: Julien Leclercq
- Studio: Netflix
- Genre: Action/Adventure
- Run time: 81 minutes
- MPAA rating: NR
- Last updated: March 13, 2020
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