Alban Lenoir
Gabriel
Overview
Gab and Driss, childhood friends on bad terms since they left the orphanage, now have opposite lives - one is a cop with the IGPN, the other a fixer for thugs. When their first love dies in a suspicious accident, her 17-year-old daughter, Leïla, takes Gab's gun and sets off on the trail of a powerful organization willing to do anything to cover the case up. Forced to team up, the orphans must stop her before she crosses a line she can't return from...
Cast
8 people
Reviews
4 min readThe Anatomy of a French Punch
There is a specific kind of exhaustion that Alban Lenoir carries in his shoulders these days. If you've been watching French cinema over the last few years, you know exactly the posture I am talking about. latestnetflix.com's view is that it's the slump of a man who knows, with absolute certainty, that he's going to have to hit someone with a blunt object before the day is out.
In The Orphans, he plays Gab, a police officer whose internal damage is written in the rigid, almost mechanical way he moves through a room. Lenoir has quietly become the patron saint of the bruised and battered European thriller. He does not glide through scenes; he trudges.
And that weight is exactly what grounds Olivier Schneider's second feature, keeping it from floating away into the realm of generic shoot-em-ups.
I was not entirely sure what to expect from Schneider here. As a stunt coordinator, he's spent years designing the kinetic architecture for global behemoths like No Time to Die and Fast X. Those films operate on the scale of myth. The Orphans, by contrast, pulls everything down to the pavement.
It's a deeply localized, surprisingly grounded buddy-movie built on the bones of an old tragedy. Gab and his estranged childhood friend Driss (Dali Benssalah) grew up in the same orphanage, loved the same girl, and predictably fractured into opposite lives. Gab became the law; Driss became a slick, tactical fixer for the underworld.
When their shared first love dies in a suspicious car crash, her teenage daughter Leïla (Sonia Faïdi) steals Gab's gun to hunt down the corporate thugs responsible. The setup is older than cinema itself. We've seen this trick before.
What makes the machinery hum is not the plot, but the friction between the two leads. Benssalah is a compelling counterweight to Lenoir. Where Lenoir is a block of granite, Benssalah is quicksilver.
Audience Opinions
Audience 5.6/10
"A punchy French buddy action film powered by charismatic leads and muscular stunts, undercut by a cliché, wafer-thin story and patchy effects."
The movie earns praise for the lively chemistry between Alban Lenoir and Dali Benssalah, energetic pacing once it gets going, and grounded car chases and fight scenes that feel tactile and impactful. At the same time, the script is often described as simplistic and predictable, the opening stretch drags before the action ignites, and overused clichés, flat villains, latestnetflix.com argues, and uneven CGI keep it from being more than disposable popcorn entertainment.
What viewers praise
- Engaging lead duo The relationship between Gab and Driss, played by Alban Lenoir and Dali Benssalah, is lively and convincing, with tense rivalry and sharp banter that make the pairing fun to watch.
- Hard-hitting action scenes Hand-to-hand fights and shootouts, especially the later sequences in confined spaces, are staged with clear geography and satisfying impact.
- Impressive car stunts Chases and crashes feel physical and practical, with several viewers singling out the driving sequences as standout moments.
- Energetic pace after setup Once the plot kicks into gear, the film moves briskly with frequent confrontations and little downtime, delivering the straightforward adrenaline hit many were looking for.
- Sonia Faïdi’s presence Sonia Faïdi is often noted as a magnetic addition whose intensity and physicality give some scenes extra emotional and dramatic bite.
Common complaints
- Very generic story The narrative is described as basic and formulaic, recycling familiar buddy-movie and revenge-thriller beats without much originality or depth.
- Slow and clumsy start The opening act is seen as drawn-out and heavy on clichés, taking too long to establish stakes before the more effective action begins.
- Weak villains and logic Antagonists are underwritten and unmemorable, and several plot turns and character decisions are called out as implausible or lazy.
- Inconsistent CGI and polish Digital effects in some car and gunplay moments look cheap next to the better practical work, breaking immersion and revealing budget limits.
- Unresolved character detail The film withholds a key answer about Leïla’s father, leaving some viewers frustrated that a central emotional question is never clearly resolved.
Recommended for
French action movie fans Buddy-cop style thrill seekers Alban Lenoir followers Casual Friday-night action Practical stunt lovers
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsThey sold summer as a theater movie. Netflix already had a ticket.
AlloCine's July 3, 2025 headline was "Pas sur Netflix." Inoxy Films, the Lost Bullet shop, was sending Alban Lenoir back to French cinemas on August 20. Gaumont would handle the theatrical. Six months later, Netflix Tudum, dated February 20, 2026, told US viewers to stream The Orphans now. The French card is Les Orphelins. The English card is The Orphans. Same 95 minutes. latestnetflix.com's read is that Same IGPN cop and fixer who have not spoken since the orphanage.
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The ledger is meaner than the trailer. Scriptoclap lists an 18.54 million euro budget, a shoot from 14 May to late July 2024 in the Pyrenees-Atlantiques and the Landes, and a Netflix pre-buy from 2023 sitting in the first window. AlloCine's CBO count stops at 133,979 French admissions. Week one did 76,520. That is a lot of wrecked Ford Capris for a film that AlloCine had pitched as the anti-Netflix summer play. The US title number is 81754057. , ,
Two Capris died so Biarritz could look like an action town.
Olivier Schneider told AlloCine he was tired of French action living only in Marseille or Nice. He parked the movie in Biarritz and Saint-Jean-de-Luz because that is where he remembered his last good holiday with his parents, at age 10. After Bayonne permits collapsed, the unit lucked into a chase through the listed market in Saint-Jean-de-Luz. Schneider said the car had less than 10 cm of clearance on each side leaving the hall. Three Ford Capris were on the job. Two were destroyed. Schneider and Lenoir kept the one that lived. The wreck, he admitted, hurt.
Lenoir did 100 percent of his physical stunts and 90 percent of his driving. Schneider has known him more than 20 years. Lenoir even worked as an extra on Tais-toi in 2002, when Schneider was still the stuntman. Dali Benssalah had already been Schneider's Primo Cyclops on No Time to Die. Sonia Faidi was 23 playing 17-year-old Leila Lakti. Benssalah recommended her. Schneider said the tests with Lenoir and Benssalah made it obvious, and that when she fights she is scary. ,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OK-v0ghAyeY
Schneider's first buddy-movie compass was Tango & Cash, then Lethal Weapon, then Les Specialistes. Gaumont lists him as director, with Nicolas Peufaillit, Lenoir, and Jean-Andre Yerles on the script, plus Anouk Grinberg and Suzanne Clement in the older parts. He had already directed GTMax for Netflix in 2024. This one got the Gaumont date and the "not on Netflix" sell. The pre-buy was already in the file. The Gaumont trailer is still the punch he wanted theaters to feel first. , , ,
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.
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