EARTH AND BLOOD : Monday 11th May 2020.

In these very trying and testing times for us all that has seen many cinema's, Odeon's, and movie theatres around the world close their doors for the foreseeable future because of the escalating threat of the COVID-19 Coronavirus taking an ever increasing hold on the world at large, many film and television productions halted in their tracks indefinitely, and new film releases pushed back to some future date when some sense of movie going normalcy is expected to resume, I have, needless to say, had to adapt to this new world order. And so with my usual Reviews of the latest cinematic releases being curtailed, instead I will post my Review of the latest release movies showing on Netflix until such time as the regular outing to my local multiplex or independent theatre can be reinstated.

In the last few weeks then, a number of new feature films have landed at Netflix - of which I review as below 'Earth and Blood' which went live on the streaming service on 17th April and which I saw from the comfort of my own home on Monday 11th May.

'EARTH AND BLOOD' is a subtitled French foreign language action thriller Directed by Julien Leclercq who is no stranger to the action thriller genre having helmed the likes of 'The Assault' in 2010, 'The Informant' in 2013, 'Braqueurs' in 2015 and 'The Bouncer' in 2018.

The film opens inside a rain soaked SUV parked outside a Police Station in which four gun men are waiting. A Police car pulls up, two Officers get out and go inside. Out get the four gunmen, wearing black balaclavas. Inside they hold the two Officers at gun point. One of the four gunmen leads a female Officer into the evidence room and steals eight kilos of cocaine. While doing so, shots ring out and two of the gunmen are shot dead. The remaining two gunmen, kill the other Officer before making off with their stolen stash of drugs, leaving the female Officer alive.

Meanwhile, we cut to a hospital in which Said (Sami Bouajila) is having a CT scan. He is diagnosed with bronchial carcinoma. He asks the Doctor how long he has got, but the answer to this question is no divulged. He sits in the car afterwards pondering his future while lighting up a cigarette (naturally!) He then visits his sister-in-law and informs her of his decision to sell the sawmill that was previously owned by her father, and assures her that she'll get her fair share of the proceeds, after all it is her inheritance despite the fact that she has not stepped foot inside the place for over twenty years. He describes himself as merely the manager, and from his proceeds he intends to build a small cabin in the woods, and set up his hearing impaired daughter Sarah (Sofia Lesaffre) at art school.

While this is going on, one of Said's employees is a young lad Yanis (Samy Seghir) who is currently out on parole and working to earn an honest living. Yanis meets with his half brother in a car park plus one of the survivors of the cocaine heist at the Police Station earlier in the day. They have decided not to hand over the cocaine to drug kingpin Adama (Eriq Ebouaney) and he instructs Yanis to hide the drugs, to which Yanis agrees, albeit very reluctantly given his parole circumstances and for fear of being found out by his boss, who has given him a lifeline. Yanis switches vehicles and hides the car containing the stash at the sawmill under a tarp, for what is supposed to be no longer than just a couple of days.

The next day Said and Yanis are out in the forest collecting two newly felled tree trunks on a tractor when Said comes across an acquaintance who three years ago had offered to buy the sawmill. Said says to him that the sawmill is his for the price offered three years ago, and to think about it. The next day, the guy comes around and Said takes him on a tour of the sawmill and they begin to negotiate. While showing him around Said uncovers the vehicle which Yanis had concealed under a tarp. When the guy has left, he suspects Yanis was the owner of the mystery vehicle and confronts him, angrily demanding the truth. Yanis says that he had little choice in concealing the drugs which are revealed by Said to be under the back seat in a holdall. He locks Yanis inside a small storeroom within the sawmill while instructing Sarah (who seems to be the Receptionist, Administrator and Accounts Clerk all wrapped into one) to wind up operations at the sawmill for the week, pay everyone out for the week and send all employees home immediately.

In the meantime, Adama has caught up with Yanis' half brother and his accomplice, and has them beaten, bound and gagged on the floor of an apartment building demanding to know where his drugs are located. He kills the accomplice by snapping his neck leaving the half brother to talk for fear of meeting the same abrupt end. Back at the sawmill Said takes Sarah into the house and tells her to lay low and remain inside, while he arms himself with a shotgun and drives off for help. Reaching a petrol station at an intersection in the road, he pulls up when the attendant friend of his informs him that the guys parked up the road just asked for directions to the sawmill. He quickly spins a U-turn and heads back to the sawmill as Adama and his henchmen give chase.

Sarah meanwhile has chosen to ignore her fathers advice and ventures out to the storeroom in which Yanis is locked. Adama's brother had arrived ahead of the others and threatens them with a gun, before being shot by Said. Said releases Yanis and takes him and Sarah inside their house. He gets Yanis to call the Police just as Adama arrives, and one of his men cuts off the telephone lines which severs his connection with the law. Said then gives Yanis a shotgun and several rounds of ammunition and tells him to stay put and to not leave Sarah from his sight. Yanis informs Said that the Police will take about twenty minutes to arrive. Adama watches his brother die in his arms, kills the second criminal (Yanis' half brother) and starts looking for the three protagonists.

Seeing Yanis and Sarah making a run for it up a hillside, one of the henchmen chase after them in a 4WD, and when that gets stuck in the uphill boggy terrain, gives chase on foot. The pair run for their lives through the forest undergrowth all the while being randomly shot at by the gunman. They are able to escape capture and death, by out running their antagonist and hiding in a horse stable. However, the lone gunman soon catches up to the pair and a fight ensues in the stable in which Yanis is inflicted with three stab wounds to the stomach from which he dies, but not before Said shoots the gunman killing him. Sarah has fled to a nearby farm house.

Previously Said had lured a number of Adama's henchmen into the sawmill with loud moving machinery distractions and had successfully dispensed with two of them. However, Adama gains the upper hand by padlocking the main door closed so trapping Said inside. He then sets the sawmill alight. Said is able to escape up a conveyor belt albeit injured from an earlier fist fight with a henchmen, whose hand he successfully cut off with a circular saw.

Escaping the sawmill in the tractor used earlier, one of the three remaining gunmen chase after him in a saloon car through the forest. Using his best evasive driving techniques Said upends the saloon car sending it spinning end over end coming to rest on its side against a clump of trees. Said goes to finish off the henchman but sees him badly injured and trapped inside the wreckage of the vehicle with petrol leaking all around him. He leaves the vehicle and the injured driver seconds before it erupts in a ball of flame.

Adama has by now followed in hot pursuit, sees the burnt out vehicle with the blackened corpse inside and continues the chase. He catches up with Said in the horse stable, where Said is shot in his right side and falls to the ground. Adama holds him at gunpoint but chooses not to finish him off, instead asking if the girl is his daughter and if so he will delight in killing her - 'an eye for an eye' he says before leaving, to avenge his brothers death.

Sarah has by now found refuge in a large rambling farm house where she interrupts an old man sat at a dining table eating. He is shot through the window several times in the chest. Sarah jumps up and escapes further into the house and up into an attic space while Adama searches for her. A helicopter is heard hovering overhead and then disappears into the distance. Cornered, Sarah jumps one storey out of an attic window but lands awkwardly on the cobbled footpath below badly twisting her ankle. She is unable to get away as Adama appears from the doorway in the now pouring rain. He kneels down beside her, clasps her head in his hands ready to snap her neck, just as Said brings an axe down on his back. Falling backwards face up, Said lands another hefty blow of the axe right into his chest killing him outright. Said falls to the ground as Sarah holds him. They both look up through the heavy rain to see a Police helicopter hovering immediately above.

Clocking in at a very lean and efficient eighty minutes, 'Earth and Blood' is a film that you have seen dozens of times before. It's fairly predictable, the plot twists and turns of which there are a few only largely go unanswered, the storyline feels like an abridged version of what it really should have been, and when the action ramps up in the final thirty minutes its as if the film is playing out in real time to wrap things up within the twenty minutes it will take the Police to arrive from when that initial phone call was made. Sure Bouajila and Ebouaney are convincing enough in their respective roles as the everyman dispensing his own brand of killer justice and the Lord of Drugs respectively, and towards the back end the tension mounts, but you can see all this coming a mile off, with the rest of the unscrupulous cast being mere canon fodder. That said, it did maintain my interest for its brisk running time.

'Earth and Blood' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard, out of a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-