The Assault Trailer: France’s Very Own United 93

Posted by on March 14th, 2012   Filed under: Action, International, Trailers
Source: Apple

Well it didn’t take much to get me interested in this movie other than the mere mention of Paul Greengrass’ United 93, but truth be told, I’m a sucker for almost any hostage crisis on film. The Assault is based on real events that occurred over Christmas in 1994, where four Islamic terrorists hijacked an Air France flight on the runway in Algiers. Their plan was apparently similar to that of the September 11th attacks, aiming to detonate the aircraft over the Eiffel Tower, and it resulted in a tense 48 hour standoff that was televised live around the world.

When the plane eventually landed in Marseilles, France’s GIGN, an elite counter-terrorism paramilitary unit, moved in and the rest is history. The movie is directed by Julien Leclercq, who previously did the sci-fi film Chrysalis. It’s hard to tell from the trailer just how valid the United 93 comparisons are, but I’m certainly hoping for more “in the moment” action and suspense as opposed to politics and reactions from people watching at home. Either way, I’m more than willing to give it a shot. The Assault hits select theatres on April 6th; check out the trailer after the jump and see what you think.



  • Mr. Political Guy

    Don’t people find it interesting in any kind of way how Muslims have ended up dominating the “badguy”-roles in mass media-films the last 10-20 years (in fact, in recent studies, an arabs are bound to be the badguy in the film he stars in)? The Cold War ended in 1988, but only because one part “lost”. The other part of the world didn’t reduce its military expenditure, international terrorism, aggression and other acts of antagonism, it rather escalated them. Moreover, the use of media (books, newspapers, TV & Film, and so on) followed the same path – it continued or intensified.

  • Mr. Political Guy

    * The use of media as instruments of propaganda.

  • Snorfle

    Okay, but isn’t this based on a true story? So if it was Muslims that took the plane hostage, wouldn’t you portray it as such?

  • Mr. Political

    Just because it’s a “true story”, it doesn’t become any more legitimate. Just ask yourself (this film is french btw, but i am saying this in a general sense): Why does Hollywood-films always have the arab guys being bad guys, and why aren’t there any films where the United States or, say, Israel, are the terrorists (which is much more accurate, since they are on the top when it comes to committing terrorism). Or say Russians. Why are they always evil? There are btw many historical periods in which a Western country’s “evilness” is proven, but it’s all ignored or forgotten (like American terror campaign in Nicaragua in 1980’s, that took the lives of 10,000, or the terror campaign against Cuba, which has lasted from the 60’s up until today). But noooo, we instead make historical films that can match current politics: Muslim are once again the bad guys, and we are once again saving the day!

  • Mr. Political

    So for example, i could start showing films of heroic crusaders fighting savage muslims (although the historical record shows an opposite reality), but “it’s based on a true story” doesn’t answer the reason of these film’s existence. Or say, Iran Man 2, where the technology of the bad guy, who, not suprising, was Russian, was suspected by Tony to be from either Iran, North Korea, China or Russia. Things like this, biased political views that are pressed into everyday entertainemnt and other media’s are there for a reason, and you have to be stupid to think otherwise.

  • Snorfle

    “Just because it’s a “true story”, it doesn’t become any more legitimate.”

    100% wrong. It makes it completely legitimate. I’m not speaking about your general point re: portrayal of Arabs or Russians as villains in movies, shows, etc (and if you ask me, more often than not, on shows like 24 or similar movies, there would always be some evil white guy as the puppet master for everything). I’m just talking about movies/shows based on real-life events. If United 93 had decided to make the hijackers a bunch of white German ultra-nationalists or something, that wouldn’t be accurate. So why fault this French movie for being accurate? Reserve your criticism for fictional villains.