There's no doubting that this is a well made film with some top acting talent, however there are two elements to the storytelling the let it down massively in my humble opinion.
1. It doesn't seem to know exactly what it's central theme/message is.
Initially the film presents a very unbiased picture of the evils committed by both sides of this particular struggle, and it also shows quite clearly how the actions of the brothers and the FLN movement moved into violent injustice and terrorism when it suited them to do so.
Basically the film starts by presenting a clear warning about the dangers of political ideology, and the fact that using violence and terrorism is never a good or fruitful thing to do, but then this message starts to get lost when, by the end of the film, it almost appears as if all the violent injustice was justified by the outcome of Algerian liberation (the end justifies the means).
I'm not sure the director intended this, it's just the way it can be read by the structuring of the film.
2. It didn't quite know whether it was a character exploration, or an historical exposition
The films starts by establishing the three brothers as the central characters, but then quickly moves into a series of FLN related terrorist activities, and the police response to these, before finishing up focusing briefly on the brothers again at the end.
To me this was a real shame, because I think that what this film never really gave us was any sense of the interior motivations and struggles of the three brothers - and this made them look like little more than mindless thugs willing to kill and maim for their ideology without the usual interior human ethical conflict - basically they come across like psychopaths at times during this film. In fact, in places it even has you rooting for the other side and almost feeling that they were justified in the atrocities they perpetrated in response to the FLN.
As a result of this lack of character exploration after the first 30 minutes or so later scenes of a character-focused nature seem a little bit contrived and out of place, like the scene with the two brothers sitting on the bus listening to American 50's rock and disagreeing about its musical quality - if more focus had been given to the characters themselves earlier on, then this scene would have made a lot more sense, and we would have been far more connected to it as an audience, but instead it just came across as odd, like a very hollow attempt at instilling some sort of sense of normalcy and humanity.
This film is well made, but unfortunately these two storytelling failings take all the gloss of what could have been a 10/10 production.
1. It doesn't seem to know exactly what it's central theme/message is.
Initially the film presents a very unbiased picture of the evils committed by both sides of this particular struggle, and it also shows quite clearly how the actions of the brothers and the FLN movement moved into violent injustice and terrorism when it suited them to do so.
Basically the film starts by presenting a clear warning about the dangers of political ideology, and the fact that using violence and terrorism is never a good or fruitful thing to do, but then this message starts to get lost when, by the end of the film, it almost appears as if all the violent injustice was justified by the outcome of Algerian liberation (the end justifies the means).
I'm not sure the director intended this, it's just the way it can be read by the structuring of the film.
2. It didn't quite know whether it was a character exploration, or an historical exposition
The films starts by establishing the three brothers as the central characters, but then quickly moves into a series of FLN related terrorist activities, and the police response to these, before finishing up focusing briefly on the brothers again at the end.
To me this was a real shame, because I think that what this film never really gave us was any sense of the interior motivations and struggles of the three brothers - and this made them look like little more than mindless thugs willing to kill and maim for their ideology without the usual interior human ethical conflict - basically they come across like psychopaths at times during this film. In fact, in places it even has you rooting for the other side and almost feeling that they were justified in the atrocities they perpetrated in response to the FLN.
As a result of this lack of character exploration after the first 30 minutes or so later scenes of a character-focused nature seem a little bit contrived and out of place, like the scene with the two brothers sitting on the bus listening to American 50's rock and disagreeing about its musical quality - if more focus had been given to the characters themselves earlier on, then this scene would have made a lot more sense, and we would have been far more connected to it as an audience, but instead it just came across as odd, like a very hollow attempt at instilling some sort of sense of normalcy and humanity.
This film is well made, but unfortunately these two storytelling failings take all the gloss of what could have been a 10/10 production.