Netflix’s AKA is another showcase for budding action star Alban Lenoir

polygon.com:

Over the past few years, action fans have been treated to a run of solid French programming on Netflix. Athena was one of the best movies of 2022, Julien Leclercq’s Sentinelle is a solid dark Olga Kurylenko thriller, Ganglands (and the movie it was based on, Braquers) are excellent crime fare, and Lost Bullet and its sequel outdo even the Fast and Furious franchise when it comes to explosive vehicular action.

The latest entry in this burgeoning scene is AKA, a new Netflix pickup that stars Alban Lenoir as Adam Franco, a highly skilled special-ops agent faced with one of his most dangerous assignments yet. Franco is implanted undercover on the security team of a notorious crime lord (infamous soccer legend Eric Cantona, a tough guy once suspended from the sport for kicking a fan). Franco makes a big impression after quickly rendering the head of security unconscious after a verbal spat, and he becomes the bodyguard for the crime lord’s bullied son, teaching the child how to fight and defend himself.

It’s pretty much “Man on Fire lite” — another movie that seems inspired by Philip Nicholson’s 1980 novel Man on Fire. AKA isn’t an official adaptation of the book, like Élie Chouraqui’s 1987 French movie version or Tony Scott’s stylized 2004 thriller. But it has a lot in common with them: It’s a dark crime story about a grizzled operative bonding with a child, and the lengths that operative will go when the child is in danger. While it lacks Scott’s directorial flair, AKA has something few other movies have: Alban Lenoir.

Lenoir started his career as a stunt performer, working on a variety of French productions and on Pierre Morel’s 2008 game-changer Taken. After a series of small parts, he got his big break in 2015’s French