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La Haine is an angry, anti-authoritarian French film that concerns three young guys (a Jew, an Arab, a black) who decide to take on the police after a friend is brutally beaten. There isn't much going on in this black and white drama beyond its violence (which can be pretty hard to watch, such as an interrogation scene that incorporates torture) and gritty observations of wayward youths hanging out on the fringes of Paris. Certainly, there isn't much in the way of insight, and director Mathieu Kassovitz seems to have absorbed more of the excesses of America's independent film scene, especially Spike Lee at his most indulgent, than its blessings. But if it's edge and rawness you want, this has it--with subtitles. --Tom Keogh

Release Date: Feb 19, 2001
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