The Kingdom (2024)

Films around or about the corsican organised crime / independentist movement (a lot of ties between the two) is almost its own sub-genre of french cinema. Last year alone there was a trio of solid films in this sub-genre : Le Royaume (The Kingdom), À son image (biography of a photo-reporter by Thierry de Peretti, who also did Les Apaches, Une vie violente and the brilliant Enquête sur un scandale d'État - Undercover in the US) and Borgo (prison drama in Corsica).

It should be noted that the film is not an action-thriller, but more the portrait of a father-daughter relationship and of the Corsican crime scene of the late 90s early 00s through they eyes of the daughter. Also, the film is by and large a re-imagination of the writer-director's life who grew up in Corsica as the son of a crime boss.

This movie is a very good example of "sticking the landing". On the page, there are several key scenes that are critical for the film to work (the one true action scene, a long monologue of the father, etc) and Colonna lands them all perfectly.

As a french speaker the only drawback of the movie is the very very odd prosody of the line delivery of the main actress. It might just be a Corsican thing though.

5/6, voted 10th best film of 2024 by my circle of movie going friends.

Theres no silly hats or zombies. Very disapointed