'Les Cowboys' is more ambitious than successful
鈥淟es Cowboys鈥� opens in 1994 on a disorienting note. We are watching a fair in rural France where all the attendees are duded up in western garb and singers are belting out songs like 鈥淭ennessee Waltz.鈥� It鈥檚 a faux celebration of the frontier spirit put on by a solidly middle-class community, represented primarily by Alain (a powerful Fran莽ois Damiens), the Stetson-wearing family patriarch; his wife, Nicole (Agathe Dronne); and their two children, the preteen Kid (Maxim Driesen) and his 16-year-old sister, Kelly (Iliana Zabeth). 聽
The festivities break up when it鈥檚 discovered that Kelly has gone missing. Soon enough it becomes clear that she has run off with her boyfriend and possible jihadi, Ahmed (Mounir Margoum). Although Kelly writes the family that she is fine and they must not look for her, Alain immediately goes into mission mode, attempting desperately to track her down. If this outline sounds familiar, that鈥檚 because Thomas Bidegain, the film鈥檚 co-writer (with No茅 Debr茅) and first-time director, is attempting an update of John Ford鈥檚 celebrated (and overrated) western 鈥淭he Searchers,鈥� in which John Wayne鈥檚 Ethan obsessively tracks down the niece (played by Natalie Wood) kidnapped by Indians. He鈥檚 like Ahab on the prairie 鈥� just substitute Comanches for Moby-Dick.
Bidegain is also working off Paul Schrader鈥檚 鈥淗ardcore,鈥� a redo of 鈥淭he Searchers,鈥� in which George C. Scott鈥檚 fundamentalist patriarch descends into the pornography netherworld to rescue his daughter. With all these antecedents, the film is more ambitious than altogether successful. Alain鈥檚 descent into crazed compulsion is never fully filled in. Although he is meant to seem self-immolating, he鈥檚 stauncher than all the naysayers, including his wife, who are pleading with him to let it go. (She accuses him of being a kidnapper.) To me he seems more noble than nuts, especially since, unlike Ethan in 鈥淭he Searchers,鈥� his pursuit is fueled not by racism but by his abiding need to protect his daughter.
Bidegain tries to cast the relationship between Alain and Kid (played as a teenager by Finnegan Oldfield) in archetypal terms: The son, in the 17 years covered by the film, ranging from Belgium to Pakistan, must eventually relinquish the father鈥檚 hold on him and find his own way 鈥� which also means finding his own way of coming to terms with Kelly鈥檚 fate. The setup is more powerful than the payoff, perhaps because Oldfield is not the most captivating of actors but also because the film鈥檚 long-form chronology, which leaps without warning across the years, short-circuits the characters鈥� emotional continuity.
And yet, with all this working against it, 鈥淟es Cowboys鈥� strikes a fresh chord. The rise of jihadism has infused this revenge scenario with (all too literally) new blood. Bidegain doesn鈥檛 underscore the story鈥檚 socially conscious aspects; he doesn鈥檛 need to. There鈥檚 a scene in which Alain is asked to sympathize with the ghettoized living conditions of an Arab immigrant, a possible informant, and Alain snaps at him. He is only there, he tells him, for his daughter. Bidegain structures the film as an adventure saga, but the smaller story is implicitly encompassed by a larger one. When an accomplice tells Alain that 鈥測our daughter is not your daughter anymore,鈥� it鈥檚 an appalling admission that speaks not only to every parent鈥檚 fears but also to the realization that we live in a world where terror has become commonplace. Grade: B+ (Rated R for a brief violent image and a scene of drug use.)
