Saw this in the UK Jewish Film Festival, where we were told Arcady had a job getting this film financed. It's extremely well made and acted: if, as one reviewer wrote, it was a huge flop, it didn't deserved to be. However, box-office failure would be understandable, since the French presumably knew the story well and wanted to be entertained rather than harrowed. One thing I didn't quite understand was the judge's ruling that this was an anti-Semitic crime. Apart from the obvious, pedantic point that most of the gang were Arabs (and Semites themselves) it's obvious that their motivation was financial. This bunch of half-wits had the idea that all Jews are filthy rich, then seized a young man whose family were nowhere near able to come up with the 450,000 euros they wanted. If their motivation had been hatred of Jews they would have just tortured and killed the poor lad. As the weeks went by and their frustration grew, their behaviour got more and more violent and they even stopped feeding him. The leader of the gang was particularly repellent.
Review of 24 Days
