I Saw Ben Barka Get Killed details

Format: 15 DVD
Starring: jean-Pierre Leaud, Jean-Pierre Leaud, Mathieu Amalric, Fabienne Babe, Charles Berling, Simon Abkarian, Josiane Balasko
Director: Serge Le Peron
Genres: Thriller - Crime, Drama, World Cinema - French
Studio: FUSION MEDIA
Name Discs
I Saw Ben Barka Get Killed
15 Feature

DVD Information

Run time: 1 hour 38 minutes
Rental release: 26 Feb 2007
Main languages: French
Subtitles: English
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Most helpful review I Saw Ben Barka Get Killed

  • Complex thriller

    Rated - 4.0 stars  
    By IanStewart (129 reviews) from Melton Mowbray , 16 Sep 2007

    [Highly rated reviewer]

    This film is a dramatisation of the 1965 political kidnapping of Moroccan revolutionary, Mehdi ben Barka. The opening scene shows the central character Georges Figon (Charles Berling) lying dead in his apartment, with his own eerie voice-over talking to the police 'lads' who are investigating the crime. From there, the story winds back in a complex series of seemingly disconnected scenes, which finally come together to give some sense of why and how Figon got killed. I said 'some sense', because the story ends without any neat clarity about who did what. Is each character a gangster, a secret agent, or a mixture of the two? And whose side is each person on - or are they playing both sides at once? We never learn that for sure. I'm guessing that the real world of espionage is pretty much like this.

    The acting is excellent throughout. Berling has a 'marathon' part, hardly ever being off screen throughout the film. Ben Barka himself is well played by a remarkable look-alike, Simon Abkarian. (There is newsreel footage early in the film, where we see the real ben Barka).

    Oddly enough, maybe the acting is too good. What I mean is that all the characters in the story (with the possible exception of ben Barka) are convincingly portrayed as being self-centred, mercenary, decidedly unattractive people. Berling plays the amoral Figon so well that I never attached to his character - Figon was a guy that I just wouldn't have wanted to know, so in the end I wasn't much interested who had killed him or why.

    I'd say, watch this one if you'd like to see a very well-produced, complex thriller, one that will get your brain working at full blast just to follow the plot.
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All reviews

(11)
  • are all governments corrupt

    Rated - 4.0 stars  
    By andysbar (34 reviews) from London , 03 Dec 2011
    a political thriller disguised as film noir[of a sort] apparently based on a shameful French truth its storytelling style may be a little to frenzied for some viewers but its well made and i sugest anyone renting this watch the interview with the director in the extras,are all governments corrupt ?
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  • Mysterious

    Rated - 3.0 stars  
    By ida55 (7 reviews) from BudeCornwall , 03 May 2009
    This French film is convoluted, involving and well worth your time. In case you don't know who Ben Barka was, check Wikipedia before you watch te DVD. You'll be glad you did.
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  • I saw Ben Barka get killed

    Rated - 3.0 stars  
    By a customer from Ledbury , 15 Apr 2009
    A complex thriller that will get your little grey cells working overtime. Good script and acting. Definitely recomend it.
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  • Customer Review

    Rated - 4.0 stars  
    By a customer from UK , 23 Jun 2008
    Charles Berling's performance as Georges Figon is outstanding and shows a twitchy, nerve-wracked, delusional chancer who becomes fatally drawn into an assassination conspiracy. Jean-Pierre Leaud as the film director, Georges Franju, withered as an old fig, is also admirable. Indeed, all the principal actors work well together and provide a strength which does much to hold together a movie that sometimes trips itself up by attempting to offer too many layers of a story simultaneously. However the appearance of Paris in the mid-1960's is effectively evoked, as are its political tensions, and the whole is underpinned by a very good jazz score.
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  • Really worthy it!

    Rated - 4.0 stars  
    By a customer from Bermondsey, London , 31 Mar 2008
    This is not an easy one-a French take on film noir/thriller but it does deliver. Watch the interview with the director at the end - the film is much more than it looks it is very ambitious and it does deliver! Really worthy it!
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