Watch Les Cowboys For Free

Beautiful, moving film.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

A young woman slips away into the night while her family is preoccupied at their beloved country western fair. "Don't look for me," she writes "I have the life I have chosen now." Her father and brother search anyway, across continents and time. The girl's father is particularly obsessed with the search. He throws his life and savings into the pursuit, learns Arabic and travels to the ends of the earth at the slightest hint of her whereabouts. "Forget about your daughter," he is told "go back home and take care of your son." Yet the father sees nothing else beyond the chase. This blinding, relentless pursuit comes with severe consequences. It consumes them, these cowboys - these men and women from scattered lands, if they cannot let go. Some can let go, others cannot. Some get second chances.Intriguing themes of Les Cowboys include letting go and the search for purpose and empathy (or lack thereof) in life. The wonderful cinematography and soundtrack of the film deftly convey emotion. Excellent screen writing; Bidegain is a screen writer turned director. His writing/co-writing credits include films I admire; A Prophet, Rust and Bone, and Dheepan. John C. Reilly makes a surprise appearance.

A passel of good old boys and girls wrapped in American flags, sheriff's badges and denim are they're doing what comes naturally: hoe-downin' and boot-stompin' and a-signin' the sappiest of hurtin' songs (yo, 'Tennessee Waltz'?). Then it hits you: they're actually wearing 38-liter Stetsons because they're all French. Indeed, there's a subset of Frenchmen that is besotted with America's Old West (as are Germans with American Indians), and we are delighting in this charming foolishness when it's suddenly clear that Alain's daughter is missing. Alain and his wife are subsequently astounded to learn that she has dropped all her old friends, taken on serious boyfriend, that he's Muslim, and that he and she have utterly disappeared. Alain's hunt for her becomes increasingly obsessive, violent and dangerous as he is duped or cheated by various Muslim contacts, more or less ignored by the authorities, and frustrated and humiliated at every turn. Save for an enigmatic visit from a fonctionnaire identified only as a government minister from 'the ministry,' everything hands together; the story is mesmerizing and fraught with tensions. Then circumstance require that Alain's son, Texanly named Kid, take over the hunt. Here begins a series of high- risk scenes and episodes that are equally mesmerizing but devoid of logic or even the remotest likelihood. They are nevertheless convincing in and of themselves, but if you require logic and likelihood, too bad. For example (spoiler!): early on Kid is out of the blue working for an NGO in Pakistan or Afghanistan (I forget which) where he falls for a fellow do-gooder but leaves her like that on meeting a shabby and dubious American freelance 'fixer' (fabulous John C. Reilly) who's going on horseback with $800,000 in gold to ransom two guys from the Taliban and doesn't trust his creepy local guides and so gets Kid to ride along as bodyguard by telling him he can get the sister back. If that won't work for you, beware: things are about to get a lot worse. This didn't bother me; I just rolled with it. But a companion hated every minute and also detected a flash of incest re father and daughter. Proceed at your own risk.

This magnificent movie is for me a terrific tribute to the western genre in many points and to John Ford's THE SEARCHERS in particular. Two men - father and son - leave everything to search for a runaway female relative, daughter and sister. A wayward girl who escaped from them. The main difference here is that the Muslim community replaces the Indian one. I also thought of Paul Schrader's HARDCORE, where Georges C Scott was also in search of his daughter, lost in the porno underworld. That's a true poignant overwhelming story that made me weep and also brought a terrific unexpected sequence, just in the middle of the movie. I don't want to spoil you this feature but, believe me, you'll be more than surprised. Hollywood film industry would have never given us such a movie, for sure. Awesome ending and an outstanding François Damiens.

I caught this movie at the Toronto International Film Fest and quite liked it. It's the kind of movie that sticks with you for a few days after you watch it. I don't think it's meant to be a remake of The Searchers as some reviewers have posited, except in the fact that it follows a families search for their daughter, who has converted to Islam and run away from home.The plot is a generational epic that follows the story of a French family torn apart in degrees by the departure and search for their daughter. Over the course of the film, the protagonist changes, refreshingly breaking from formulaic Hollywood precedents. The first leg of the film follows the father, who is obsessive and ego- centric in his search for his daughter. The second part of the film follows his son as he picks up the quest and demonstrates that that the sins of the father are not always visited upon the son. Thematically, the story is built around the idea of contemporary Europe and the Muslim world being a clash of civilizations, much like the cowboys and indians. It is not a classic Western by any stretch, but thematic and aesthetic elements are there to get across the comparison. All in all, I thought it was a beautiful and ultimately hopeful movie... worth a watch.