The Crew  ★★★½

THE French make great crime dramas. In fact, I can’t recall ever seeing a bad one.

They’re always tough, gritty and full of desperate characters.

The best thing is there’s never room for much sentiment – people die or they get away with it, whether the audience likes it or not.

If you want to invest an extended length of time, try the television series Braquo about corrupt police unit. It runs for several seasons.

On film, another good example is 2015’s The Crew, centered on a small group of armed robbers.

Running less than 90 tightly constructed minutes, it stars Sami Bouajila in the lead role and few play a criminal better.

Bouajila’s eyes convey a balance of steely determination and potential ruthlessness and his characters always include just a hint of humanity.

In The Crew he is Yanis who heads the gang of five that includes his younger brother.

They prepare and execute their jobs with care and precision. They aren’t greedy and don’t take unnecessary risks, only harming somebody if required.

The tightly-knit group spend their ill-gotten gains wisely and take their time. But two things happen to impact this well-oiled machine.

Firstly, Yanis takes on a new man he met in prison whose drug habit causes some tensions within the group. More importantly, he gives his younger brother some greater responsibility

His brother messes up and the gang comes to the attention of a crime syndicate that demands they pay a debt by doing a far-riskier job than normal. Of course, there are tiwsts and turns and serious gun-play in the streets, a trademark of the modern French crime drama.

Also part of the strong cast are Guillaume Gouix as the new gang member Eric and Youssef Hajdi as Bouajila’s right-hand man Nasser. They make a compelling trio.

The film is written and directed by Julien Leclercq who has made two other taut thrillers worth a watch – The Informant from 2013 and The Assault in 2010xt film will be a departure, a biopic of Formula 1 driver Alain Prost starring Gouix.