Daniel Saint-Hamont Movies

This intense French action saga concerns a group of five closely-knit but very different brothers, raised by a mother who grew too old too quickly, their father long dead. One spent years geographically separated from the family, but suddenly reappears under unusual circumstances, pursued by a gang of drug traffickers. He hides out among the others and reveals a secret unbeknownst to any of them. Now aware that their father was violently assassinated, the men band together and make a pact to avenge the patriarch's death. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

The war for control of a lucrative international drug trade provides the focus of this drama. The trouble begins when a kingpin is released after serving a ten year prison sentence and discovers that his relatives are engaging in a bloody battle for control. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The 1926 commercial and social structure of French Guiana, the French former penal colony in South America, differed little from that of Haiti a century before. White settlers owned or exploited everything and everyone. No one else was permitted to benefit greatly, and even the modest success of members of the mulatto, black, and Indian majority population were only permitted at the whim of the colony's rulers. Into this recipe for disaster appears a liberty-loving Frenchman named Jean Galmont. Not only is he helped by Guinean locals to get his feet on the ground, but he returns the favor by being almost mulishly color-blind. When he gains great success as the boss of a gold mine, he freely shares his wealth with his black and mulatto partners and the miners themselves. For a while he is riding high, but even his great wealth cannot win acceptance by the white rulers for schemes which would put blacks at the forefront of business or cultural dealings, and he is systematically hounded by them until he is destroyed. However, the stirrings of liberty which he spawned would prove to be more difficult to squash. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Commissioner Stan Jalard (Jean-Paul Belmondo) takes in his godson after the boy's father, who is also Stan's police partner, is murdered in this routine action thriller. Stan chases the heavy until he catches up with him. He levies his gun on the killer as he decides whether to shoot him or let him spend life in prison. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

This well-articulated, engaging story about the differing fortunes of two brothers just after Algeria's war for independence is conventional in its outlines, and may have several more characters than can be developed in a short time, but its subtle handling by director Ariel Zeitoun helps to counteract those flaws. Rego (Christophe Malavoy) has just returned from a tour of duty in Algeria where he escaped the demands of his budding musical career. Now that he is back, his former agent does not welcome him with open arms because he is still mad over Rego's sudden departure, just when things were going well. The delinquent, wild teenager Antoine (Pierre-Loup Rajot) is Rego's younger brother, now in love with his new music teacher (Gabrielle Lazure), and his persistence in going after the reserved young woman ends in a brief and forbidden fling -- and trouble for her. As events continue on their course, the fate of the two brothers is vastly divergent, even though they continue to have a strong bond between them. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Set against the Allied invasion of North Africa in 1942, this overly-ambitious, comedy-drama focuses on the relationship between its two central characters, Leon Castelli (Roger Hanin) a half-Algerian, half-French bartender, talkative, but with a generous soul, and Etienne Labrouche (Philippe Noiret) the French colonial mayor of the town. Leon gets propositioned on a business deal by an American soldier and joins him in setting up an "underground" night spot in an abandoned airplane hangar that soon catches on and thrives like weeds in a garden. Etienne, in the meantime, starts an affair with the governess of his children and is caught out by his wife, who sends the woman packing. Since the ex-governess needs to support herself somehow, she accepts a waitress job working in the underground nightclub. The word gets out, and before much time has gone by, the nightclub is trashed by a hired gang. Furious at Etienne because he feels this is the mayor's way of paying him back for hiring the governess, Leon picks up a shotgun and goes to Etienne's estate seeking revenge. But fate has other ideas, and when he arrives, Leon discovers that Etienne's father has just died and left a bombshell of a revelation about his parentage that changes everything. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

The main distinguishing feature of this comedy could be its long title, perhaps the longest in cinematic history. Director Jan Saint-Hamont follows up his 1979 film about a European-Algerian family with the same ethnic focus here. This time around the "Pied-Noirs," or French-Algerians, are represented by a successful businessman and his family. The ineptly tyrannical patriarch proves to be too much for his wife, and she reacts in a distinctly non-traditional manner. For most viewers, the success of the earlier film is not quite duplicated in this second effort. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi