Earth and Blood  ★★★

SAMI Bouajila is one of my favourite foreign-language actors.

Tunisian-French, he has that world-weary but still dangerous look of Liam Neeson at his best.

I’m looking forward to his latest, A Son, which looks like a powerful drama, but also recently caught him in Earth and Blood on Netflix.

Running at only 80-minutes, it’s a taut, violent siege tale that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Bouajila plays Said, the owner of a timber mill and single father to a teenage daughter. The business is struggling to stay afloat and Said has decided he can hold out no longer and has to sell.

Said drives his employees hard but is always fair and accommodating. He organises with the potential new owner to keep all the staff.

One of Said’s employees does a favour for his brother and hides a car on the mill property. Unbeknownst to him and Said, there is a stash of drugs in the boot, stolen from a vicious local drug dealer.

Naturally the dealer wants his drugs back and revenge for the insult and arrives at the mill with henchmen and weaponry. Said has to defend himself and his daughter in an extended encounter that will leave many dead.

The French do this type of stripped-down, action-thriller extremely well. There is a no-nonsense element that restricts the story to the bare bones, in this case not even bothering to fill-in a back-story for Said despite when it becomes clear that he knows how to handle a life-and-death situation.

There’s not much more to say here either. It’s tough, bloody and exciting.