Elyas

Movie Name:  Elyas
Year of Release: 2024
Director: Florent-Emilio Siri
Starring: Roschdy Zem, Laetitia Eido, Jeanne Michel, Dimitri Storoge, Sherwan Haji, Eric Savin, Nabil Elouahabi, Toussaint Martinetti, Frederic Maranber, Aguibou Ba, Leonid Glushchenko, Sieme Miladi, Olivia Bonamy
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 4
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Synopsis and Review

Director Florent-Emilio Siri is well known for his work directing music videos, but also for having directed the Bruce Willis led, "Hostage" which came out in 2005."Elyas" is his most recent feature directorial endeavor since his last effort released in 2015, "French Cuisine". The film focuses its attention on Elyas, a former Special Forces soldier dealing with some trauma from his experiences in Afghanistan, who gets a new job courtesy of a referral as a security guard for a wealthy/affluent family. While not exactly something he was looking forward to tackling, he agrees to it, since they pay is solid and the job itself seems rather low risk. He is tasked with protecting a young girl by the name of Nour and her mom Amina. While initially cold and distant, Nour slowly ingratiates herself with him, and a bond of friendship is built around Elyas and the young girl. However their placid existence is thrown into disarray when the castle is invaded, with a highly skilled team of mercenaries trying to kidnap Nour. Elyas' security team is all killed, and it eventually falls down to him to successfully prevent Amina and Nour from being taken.

"Elyas" covers ground that many other films have already done so in the past. The most obvious reference is of course Tony Scott's "Man on Fire" with Denzel Washington and Dakota Fanning, which this film appears to attempt to remake, just moving the action to a different continent and reframing some of the context of the narrative. The film also bears influences from Paul Greengrass' "The Bourne Identity" films, in the way the action set pieces are orchestrated and shot. The film is in essence another take on the action films Luc Besson's Europa Corp has been producing, with directors such as Olivier Megaton, Louis Leterrier, Xavier Gens, Pierre Morel, and more recently George Huang. Slick and polished B-movies, not that different in spirit from the genre pictures that the late Charles Bronson was doing with director Michael Winner. "Elyas" doesn't provide much in terms of character development for any of the characters, and much of the rapport that is shaped between the lead characters feels very much like a cliché already captured in other films, but it illustrates the connection between them until the action set pieces begin. The action is adequately captured, without the frantic sense of urgency and authenticity as Paul Greengrass has been able to do in his "The Bourne Identity" films, but it's effective and gives the film the jolt of energy that it needs. The film and its creative team, don't take the material or themselves very seriously: they know they're crafting a B-movie made of car chases and fight scenes, and that's essentially what they deliver. There are some hints of character development with Elyas references to his past, but they're altogether brief. The cast is led by the talented Roschy Zem, who creates Elyas as a credible, stoic and unstoppable individual, while the supporting players do a fairly competent job with the limited material they have. The production team is equally competent. It's a watchable and unmemorable feature.