Apaches: Gang of Paris

Apaches (2023) opens with a cockamamie sequence in which Billie (Chloé Peillex), a street urchin at the time, stabs Sarah Bernhardt (Rossy de Palma) in the thigh and steals a ruby- and diamond-encrusted necklace from the famous French stage actress, while her brother and fellow urchin sabotages the scaffoldings surrounding a Statue of Liberty-in-progress (the movie takes place in Paris in the late 19th century) as a diversion. As with the destruction of the second Death Star, no mention is made of the many innocent laborers who surely must have perished as a result of this domestic terrorist attack.

Billie’s brother was killed when Jésus (Niels Schneider), leader of the Apaches gang, forced him to play Russian roulette. Billie attacked Jésus with a knife, giving him a nigh-imperceptible scar under his left eye. Jésus retaliated by pinning her brother’s death on Billie. Billie reemerges 15 years later, now played by Alice Isaaz and bent on going into the Revenge Business.

This film’s problem, other than being the Euro Disney to Gangs of New York’s Disneyland, is that it talks business but it doesn’t mean business. The script lowers the bar considerably as to what Billie is willing to do for the sake of vengeance, only to abstain from having her limbo under it. Billie follows a row of working girls, purporting to be one of them, to the Apaches’ hangout. I was intrigued to see whether Billie would sleep her way through the Apaches’ hierarchy until she was finally able to get close enough to Jésus. That would have given Billie instant stone-cold cred — and why not? Having come of age behind bars, her only family long dead, it would stand to reason that Billie has been hardened to the point that she’s willing to do anything — or anyone — to avenge her brother and herself.

Then again, you don’t have to actually whore Billie out. You could, however, at least milk the situation for whatever it’s worth. It’s like Syd Field wrote: “If you know your character’s dr...