Les Cowboys Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

Les Cowboys Blu-ray Movie Review

The chercheurs.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 15, 2016

For Americans, especially those of us who either grew up in or spent large parts of our life in the west, there may be something just a little comical about the title of Les Cowboys. Everyone knows about “mixed” languages like Spanglish or Franglais, but it still might be a little disconcerting to see that French plural definite article before what is perhaps one of the most iconically “American” words in existence. That particular disconnect may be only the tip of the iceberg, if I may be permitted to introduce a decidedly un-western metaphor into the proceedings, for despite a probably deliberately ambiguous opening that sees someone in western garb evidently out in the wild by a gorgeous waterfall, it soon becomes clear this is not going to be a 19th century accounting of intrepid settlers battling indigenous peoples. It soon becomes apparent, courtesy of little things like “horseless carriages”, that Les Cowboys is a decidedly contemporary affair, though one that intentionally calls back to Western (as in the film genre) tropes in sometimes unexpected ways. A family is at a kind of western themed carnival in 1994, where father Alain Balland (François Damiens) is a local hero of sorts and who is called upon to take the festival stage to warble a heavily accented version of the old Patti Page evergreen “Tennessee Waltz”. Already there’s a slightly askew feeling to all of these proceedings, again probably especially for Americans who like their country (or country-esque) music straight with no French chaser. Alain departs the stage to share a rather sweet father and daughter dance with his teenaged girl Kelly (Iliana Zabeth). Everything seems to be cozy and safe, which of course probably portends huge upset, which is what ultimately occurs when Kelly more or less vanishes from the scene without a trace. The cross cultural elements that are already at play as evidenced not just by the film’s title but by this odd mishmash of an opening sequence turn out to be one of the central elements of the screenplay by Noé Debré and Thomas Bidegain (who also directed), when it turns out Kelly’s disappearance is tied to her relationship with her Muslim boyfriend. Les Cowboys is an often fascinating film that plays a little like a 21st century reboot of John Ford’s iconic The Searchers. The film plays out over the course of a rather broad span of time, and as such there’s a nicely organic evolution of various characters’ views and ideas, something that gives Les Cowboys a naturalistic ambience.

Alain rather quickly figures out that Kelly’s vanishing is tied up with her boyfriend Ahmed, but he encounters a series of frustrating obstacles. Connections to the local Muslim community are frayed at best, and not made better due to Alain’s panicked urgency in trying to track down his daughter. Official help in the form of the police is also in short supply, leaving Alain to fend for himself, something that ultimately ends up sending unexpected ripples through his marriage with Nicole (Agathe Dronne). Caught up in the maelstrom and increasingly important to the film’s plot as it segues forward through time is the couple’s initially young son, identified only as The Kid (Maxim Driesen as the young boy, Finnegan Oldfield as the character in his later years).

Les Cowboys takes place over such a long period of time that it ends up being divided into two more or less equal parts, one dealing with the attempts of Alain to track down Kelly (who it ultimately is revealed has taken a more Muslim friendly name), and the next dealing with the Kid’s own journey to find his long lost sister. The first part of the film is perhaps the more convincing, which is a little odd since the second part tends to deal in some of the more visceral content, especially once the Kid journeys to far off locales (like Pakistan) and ends up getting into a series of predicaments which at one point almost play like a reboot of Midnight Express , at least in terms of a “foreigner” being jailed in a strange country if not with the attendant drug smuggling angle. A number of supporting players wander through this second section, including a patently odd quasi-cameo by John C. Reilly as a mercenary type with whom the Kid comes into contact.

Les Cowboys rather smartly plays upon all sorts of “traditional” Western formulations, while also dealing presciently with the terror aspects which were becoming more prevalent in the 1990s and beyond. The film is often extremely disturbing on a purely emotional level, even if some of the narrative strands aren’t woven together especially artfully. Performances are uniformly strong, and there are some really fascinating moments for the Kid especially. Les Cowboys manages to deal with all sorts of cross cultural currents in a generally intelligent way, making it clear that there are probably some questions for which there are no easy answers.

Les Cowboys Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Les Cowboys is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cohen Media Group with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. The IMDb lists the Arri Alexa as the camera utilized on the shoot, and this boasts the typically sharp and well detailed imagery the technology affords. That said, director Thomas Bidegain and cinematographer Arnaud Potier often favor "arty" shots that tend to obscure detail levels (see screenshots 7 and 15 for two good examples). The palette is kind of bifurcated, with the initial French scenes looking a bit more verdant and then, later, once the Kid starts traveling through more barren climes, things get dustier and grittier looking, with an emphasis on beiges and browns. Detail levels typically remain quite high throughout the presentation, though some of the darkest scenes, including the harrowing jail sequence, suffer from what I've come to term "digital murk," where shadow definition and fine detail levels aren't especially impressive. There are no issues with image instability and no compression artifacts of any note.

Les Cowboys Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

It's a Cohen release, so time for another audio rant! We at least are back to being offered lossless audio on Cohen's releases, in this case a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track, but Cohen continues to have its discs authored to default to the also included lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 track, so audiophiles should be aware as they boot up the movie. The track has some decent surround activity, courtesy of scenes like the opening "jamboree," but also later due to nicely placed ambient environmental effects throughout the long desert sequences. Dialogue is always rendered cleanly. The specs above are a bit misleading, for this is a multi-lingual affair, to say the least. I'll simply quote the litany of languages the disc's own back cover lists: English, French, Arabic, Flemish and Pashto. Like I said above: cross cultural.

Les Cowboys Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 2:06)


• The Making of Les Cowboys (720p; 34:26) has some decent interviews and good behind the scenes footage.

Les Cowboys Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Les Cowboys is often a film about subtext, and as such it bears a closer examination than it might seem to be offering on its already visceral surface level. The film reinvents all sorts of hoary Western clichés in a completely unexpected (and contemporary) way, creating juxtapositions that are in and of themselves unsettling since they so felicitously combine the known with the surprising. Performances are very strong and the film is weirdly scenic in its own unusual way. Some narrative stumbles and a perhaps too slow resolution (if there even is a "traditional" resolution) will make this a bit of a slog for some, but for those with a bit of patience, Les Cowboys pays some rather powerful dividends. Technical merits are generally strong, and Les Cowboys comes Recommended.