The premise is electrifying as it at once involves international CIA-type (DGSE in France) political intrigue and gang mafia action with police FBI (DST in France) overtones. Of course, Adam (Lenoir) is surprised by his boss, since his unit’s assignments are never on the French mainland and are always for overseas territories.

AKA is part of a current series of French movies that have mixed action and intrigue with both international and domestic French political issues. 

In fact, Alban Lenoir’s star power has been on a steady rise for more than a decade, quickly catching up to Jason Statham’s celebrity in French territories, who rose to prominence in a similar set of films starting with French director, Luc Besson. 

Some moviegoers may not recollect, however, before Hobbs and Shaw, before Fast and Furious, The Mechanic, and The Meg, Jason Statham got his career launched in a trilogy of French action movies, The Transporter series.

Lenoir is definitely less elegant nor as refined as Statham’s heroes, though he is no less charismatic on screen.  Lenoir comes across far more brutal, big, quieter and more lethal. 

Lenoir’s heroes are typically closer to the MCU marine jarhead The Punisher (Jon Bernthal) and to some of the Vin Diesel characters and the current Reacher series starring Alan Ritchson as Jack Reacher.  And still despite the obvious similarities, Lenoir and production team manage to imbue his films with a distinct French character.

Although he started his career way back as a skinhead in the 2002 movie, The Truth About Charlie, it was not until 2015, where he played Marco Lopez, a white slums neo-Nazi skinhead who did not really fit in as a neo-Nazi with his gang in the film French Blood. 

Lenoir received recognition for his role in French Blood and his star has been on a hot streak ever since with 15 Minutes of War (2019 film about French special forces and the Foreign Legion on the Somalian Frontier in a true story hostage rescue operation), 2020 Lost Bullet and the 2022 Lost Bullet 2 sequel.

Both French Blood and 15 Minutes of War are recommended viewing, if you enjoy AKA and Lenoir’s method of interpretation, although in both of the aforementioned films, it is an ensemble cast of actors that pull the films together.

Starring as Franco-Italian mafia mob boss Victor Pastore, is Eric Cantona, another big-name celebrity in France and The United Kingdom, who is basically a complete unknown in the USA.

Unfortunately unlike Dwayne Johnson as Hobbs or Dave Bautista as Drax, Cantona as Victor Pastore does not get any funny or humorous line of dialogue, not even a humorous situation, despite the obvious bountiful occasions to take a shot at French and European police standards or even French DGSE snafus that made news headlines in the past.

Cantona as Victor is best positioned as a character to deliver a livelier open discussion with the public and the moviegoer.  Unfortunately he gets only straight lines tacked to his role as a mob boss managing his business, his underlings and his family.