The French action thriller became a global streaming hit on Netflix

If done with a little skill, action movies are pure cinema. They are kinetic, ecstatic and sometimes balletic. Whether we’re watching hand-to-hand combat, bullet-whistling gunfights, or tire-squealing car chases, action movies have the potential to make us gasp and cheer as stuntmen (or action-ready actors) strut their fearless stuff. And when a director is skilled enough to craft a storyboard, frame by frame, the chaotic mayhem that unfolds on screen, your reward is nothing short of happiness.

For now action figures of the likes of John WooJackie Chan and Walter Hill make life worth living, a true movie junkie can get their daily fix from a down and dirty, formulaic film filled with crudely executed beats and twisted metal set pieces. There is a nobility to this kind of filmmaking. In her vital essay “Trash, Art and Cinema,” the legendary film critic Pauline Kael wrote, “The lowest action trash is preferable to wholesome family entertainment. When you clean them up, when you make movies respectable, you kill them. their art, their greatness, is that they are not respected.”

James Fargo has nothing worthy of respect “Forced Revenge” starring Chuck Norris, but it’s Americanized kung fu comfort food that hit the spot many times in my life — and these days, action subgenres don’t need to be Americanized to connect with US audiences because action is a universal language. This is exposition, fight, plot, fight, more plot, fight and so on. And these foreign films are so formulaic that you know exactly what’s going on, even if you watch them without subtitles.

Here’s how French spoof ‘Taken’ could end up in Netflix’s top 10 streaming videos in early 2025.

According to FlixPatrolAd Vitam, directed by Rodolfo Lago, has become the most watched movie on Netflix since its debut three days ago. The French film stars Guillaume Canet (a brilliant actor and director probably best known to American audiences as Leonardo DiCaprio’s rival for the affections of Virginie Ledoyen in The Beach) as a disgraced policeman whose pregnant wife (Stephane Caillard) is kidnapped and held hostage evil guys who need Kanet to use his particular skill set to their advantage. Check out the trailer for the movie on YouTube and you’ll see Kane running across rooftops, shooting guns, riding a motorcycle, and doing a bit of parkour as he tries to keep Kayaro safe.

We are just in “Taken”-ville here, a place where a veteran actor like Kahne could perhaps carve out a powerful one-man army franchise for himself. The film has yet to receive enough reviews from Metacritic-approved critics to merit a rating, but Monica Castillo of RogerEbert.com gave the film a one-and-a-half star review for flaws in the character department. Again, we’re not looking for high art in “Ad Vitam,” but you need an emotional buy-in to catch that quick thrill in the third act; otherwise, you might as well watch the occasional UFC fight.

As one of the most popular movies on Netflix right now, millions of people around the world are watching it, and 95 minutes doesn’t take long. If you like watching highly skilled scoundrels rescue their kidnapped spouses, this might be your action trash.