The World Is Yours (Le monde est à toi) first published by EyeforFilm
If the title of this comedy crime caper from director/co-writer Romain Gavras (Our Day Will Come, 2010) is suggestive of grand ambitions (or of the videogame sequel to the 1983 film Scarface) , its portly protagonist Farès (Karim Leklou) has set his sights on an altogether more modest dream. For he hopes to control the entirely legitimate distribution of ‘Mr Freeze’ ice lollies in North Africa, and to move into his own small villa (with pool) in Spain with the hard-hustling object of his affections, Lamya (Oulaya Amamra). To raise the money to realise his vision, though, this reluctant small-time criminal must carry off one last, straightforward-seeming job, picking up a large consignment of hash from ‘the Scotsman’ (Sam Spruell) for a young new kingpin, the posturing Scarface wannabe Poutine (Sofian Khammes). As things inevitably get complicated, Farès must contend with his meretricious girlfriend, his dim-witted partner-in-crime Henri (Vincent Cassel), a young abductee (Gabby Rose), different – but equally aggressive – gangs of Ethiopians, Scots and Zaireans, and most volatile of all, his own mother Danny (Isabelle Adjani), whose overbearing love for Farès is always being compromised by her pathological larceny.
The World Is Yours is a brassy, ballsy dash through multicultural France’s (criminal) place in a world where indeed – as is claimed by the Illuminati conspiracies with which Henri becomes hilariously obsessed – everything is connected, albeit chaotically. For this is a tale of disorganised crime, where one rather unassuming man plots for an anonymous, above-board but below-the-radar existence in retirement from a rogues’ gallery of characters less larger-than-life than they imagine. If the final image evokes the pool-side sweltering of Jonathan Glazer’s Sexy Beast (2000), inevitably it scales this down too. For even if it’s yours, it’s a small world after all.
© Anton Bitel
