THE BRAVE/ LAZARAT

US, 2019, 103 minutes, Colour.
Armand Asssante, Louis Mandylor, Ravshana Kurkova, Igor Jijikine.
Directed by William Kaufman.

This is a film for those who enjoy slam bang action, continuous slam bang action, lots of slam and even more bang.

Basically, this is a film about a squad of police who are out to destroy a narcotics gang. The film opens with a picture of the gang and Louis Mandylor as an undercover agent. There is an immediate confrontation with the police, fights, and a clarification of who is who and the plan for the confrontation of the gang.

In the meantime, the brains behind the operation, Armand Asssante, lives in New York and controls from there.

There are interrogations of prisoners, information given, the discovery that one of the police force is on the payroll of the gang. This leads to confrontations, shootouts, deaths on both sides, and, especially, the death of a little boy who recognised the criminal policeman during a setup drop at a nightclub, and the head of the planned attack.

At the end, there is determination on the part of the police, a raid, the female officer, who used to work for the gang when she was very young, fighting for her life, and then joining in an attack on the headquarters where the head of the gang has retired.

What makes the film different is that the setting is Albania, a town involved in drug production and distribution. The police force is Albanian, vivid scenes in the opening credits about revolution, the central character having hard memories of the death of his mother, the suicide of his father. The police chief as well as the gang leader were involved in revolutionary activity trying to build a free Albania.

For those interested in thinking about Albania, its reputation for exporting criminals (which the screenplay acknowledges with regret), and its aspirations for freedom will find more in it than the average audience looking for the slam-bang.