... with violence, brutality and anarchy leading the police and gangs into ruthless, confrontational battles in the neighbourhoods of northern Marseille. Inspired by reality, with cinematography, direction and a great story forming a vicelike hold that's hard to escape - especially when compounded through several standout performances that bind, unite, brace and support.

Bac Nord (or The Stronghold for the English title) is a good French action movie. A bit exaggerated though but still a good almost two hours of entertainment. There are some really bad neighborhoods in France, like in every big city I would say, where police is not welcome anymore. Those ghettos have been created by the governments, by letting a certain population have no hope for a better future unless you're lucky and persistent. It's a shame but it's the truth. By creating those ghettos where the habitants have no respect for anything, no money unless doing something illegal, you create a generation of monsters. The movie is a bit exaggerated, although Marseille is just a big dump I wouldn't want to live in, but there are some scenes that looked familiar like in real life. The acting is good and that from everybody, the action is constant what makes it entertaining. Well shot as well, it all felt real. I watched it subtitled in English and that was more than welcome because that Southern French accent is just awful. My language is French but not that kind of ghetto French. Bac Nord isn't a good publicity for Marseille, nor for the police. They're both thrash, people I want to stay as far as possible away from.

An elite police unit in France is stuck doing petty jobs, like grabbing guys illegally selling turtles in markets. Whenever something serious goes down, the criminals immediately seek refuge in the housing projects where our unit it told they can't go in. One day a politician decides that he wants results, something big. One of the unit guys has an projects insider CI who gives him info. She can give him the way to find the stash house filled with drugs and money but in exchange she wants a couple of kilos of cannabis. The police chief tells our unit to figure out how to procure the drugs and gives them the go-ahead. All they can do is station themselves near the projects where drugs are sold and take the drugs from customers after they did their purchase, which are tiny amounts every time. The drug dealer of the area confronts them at some point. Eventually they amass the kilos and get the info. They mount a large operation to enter the projects and follow a dealer to the stash house. The operation doesn't run very smoothly but it works. The confiscate drugs, money, and arrest some of the bigger fish. They and the police chief are heroes.

A couple months our three main guys from the unit are arrested for drug trafficking and jailed right away. The police chief who gave them the order to proceed feigns ignorance. The only way out of for one the guys to give up the identity of his CI, which he is reluctant to do as he was quite friends with her. As the condition of the guys deteriorates he will have to struggle with making a decision.

Stronghold tells then this unlikely if not impossible story, impossible from an American perspective. But this actually did happen in France. Unlikely, too, the police procedures, if one is used to US police movies. But more than police (low-level) action, this movie is more dramatic. One of the police guys just had his wife, who is a police dispatcher, deliver a baby, while the senior police guy starts hurting himself in jail and the other one has to struggle with the dilemma of identifying the snitch. Why this can't be done while putting her in protective custody or some such thing who knows. The cops are likeable, some of the bad guys are funny, and the police chief is a scumbag. The police operation is not nearly as action-packed as one would expect. So this movie has a good story but it should have taken more liberties with realism to make it more exciting and entertaining.