Netflix’s “AKA” is an action-packed thriller film that is apparently not too different from the usual action French films of recent times. The plot here revolves around a tough enforcer, Adam Franco, who is secretly appointed by a French minister to track down a potential terrorist before the next planned attack. “AKA” is all about extensive brawl scenes and large-scale gunfights, with slight matters of emotional connection and the issue of who the bad guy really is all thrown into the mix. Although this new French action thriller does not present anything out of the ordinary, it does manage to provide an entertaining watch.
Spoilers Alert
Plot Summary: What Is The Film About?
“AKA” begins in the Sebha province of Libya, where an Islamic militant group brings a captive journalist into their hideout. The journalist is then placed inside a cage in the underground facility at the place, with a piece of cloth still keeping his head covered. However, this man soon turns out to be no ordinary reporter but an undercover spy who frees his tied hands and goes about his job. He calls out to another individual kept in the next cage, a certain Sonia Gautier, and it is now clear that he has infiltrated the hideout for Sonia. A gunfight soon follows, in which the experienced spy takes down everyone at the militant outpost, and he is then left alone with Sonia. However, instead of rescuing the woman, the man then shoots Sonia dead, revealing that it was actually his job to kill her.
Many miles away in Paris, all television news channels broadcast one single breaking news story—an explosion had taken place at a hotel room in the center of Paris, and it has direct links with an operation conducted by the RAID elite tactical unit of the French police, in which they were trying to bring down and capture a terrorist cell. The main perpetrator behind this terrorist cell and also the explosion is announced to be a Sudanese warlord named Moktar Al Tayeb. In order to bring things under control and capture the fugitive Al Tayeb, French senator Marconnet gets in touch with his ally, Kruger, who seems to be a high-ranking official of the French police. The two men discuss how they should not have let Al Tayeb escape and how he is being helped by a local mobster named Victor Pastore, who is now possibly sheltering the Sudanese national. Kruger quickly comes up with a plan to trace their target, for which he would have to get someone to infiltrate Victor’s compound. Without a doubt, Kruger decides on the best agent he has to offer—a henchman named Adam Franco, who is also the same man earlier seen in Libya.
Who Had Informed Amet Of Victor’s Plan To Rob A Bank?
Adam enters Victor’s gang as a temporary replacement for one of his henchmen, and he soon starts to develop a bond with the other members. There is really no place for usual human bonds in this gang, or in “AKA” film itself, for that matter, and so Adam has to start to prove himself useful to the criminal family. His first real contact within the gang is a man known as Pee Wee, and Adam drives out with the man to their first mission—to extract information about a bank they plan to loot. During this mission, Pee Wee finds himself in trouble as he is held at gunpoint, and it is Adam who has to step in and save the man with his brute force and reckless courage. Naturally, Pee Wee starts to trust Adam completely after this incident, and he tells the protagonist about the local trouble that Victor’s gang has been facing for some time now. A man called Amet had been trying to conduct his drug business over Victor’s territory, and with Chechen descent and almost a private army of young men by his side, Amet had been playing tough for all this time. Over the next few days, Adam also learns more about Victor Pastore’s family, particularly his wife Natalya, who runs a nightclub named Milord. As it happens, many of Amet’s men are customers at Milord, and Natalya does not mind serving them. But Victor is very much against this since Amet, and he are direct rivals. There is already growing displeasure between Victor and Natalya, particularly because of the latter’s belief that her husband does not care about her children because he is not their biological father.
After a few days, Victor’s gang goes out to rob the bank they had intended to, and both Pee Wee and Adam are part of it. All goes smoothly as the men steal the cash and also make a clean getaway until a car drives into them, causing an accident, and armed men in more cars start showing up at the place. Adam and his group immediately understand that they are all Amet’s men, and a heavy shootout follows. After the crisis has been averted, Victor and his closest men discuss how Amet could have known about their mission since nobody outside the family had any idea about their plan, and Amet’s men surely intended to steal the money from the gang. While none of them can figure it out at the time, Adam knows very well who betrayed the family, for he had seen it happen the previous night. Frustrated with the situation in her life, Natalya had planned to steal some considerable money and escape from her life with Victor. But the woman could not think of any way to collect the money alone, so she told Amet about her husband’s latest plan to rob a bank. Amet had agreed to pay half the amount he would steal from Victor’s men to Natalya, and she would then escape her life. When one of Natalya’s girls at the nightclub had gone out to inform one of Amet’s men about this plan, Adam had seen them, and he had figured out what was up. However, Adam did not tell his boss about it, as he sided with Natalya and even urged her to go away from the gang before it was too late. Ultimately, though, Victor also gets to know about this betrayal, and he is seen to have severely beaten-up Natalya for it.
Why Does Adam Save Victor’s Kidnapped Stepson, Jonathan, By Himself?
A crucial fact about Adam Franco’s past makes him gradually develop a close and loving bond with Victor’s eight-year-old stepson, Jonathan. Although Victor himself makes slight mention of this past, it is not completely revealed to us until Jonathan’s elder sister, Helene, digs up this on the internet. Adam had actually grown an infamous reputation in France after shooting dead a minister outside of a courthouse at the mere age of fifteen. But there was a deep reason behind this act of Adam, as the politician he had killed was actually a child molester who had sexually violated innumerable children over a period of two years. Among these children was Adam’s own brother, who had lost his life from the impact of the horrific incident. Although the minister had been going through a court case regarding the same, Adam probably believed that the law would ultimately protect the perverted man, and he, therefore, took the responsibility of punishing him into his own hands. Recklessly brave and courageous, even at the age of fifteen, Adam simply pulled out a shotgun and killed the politician outside the courthouse. Despite being shot five times by the police from a close distance, Adam somehow survived the gunshots, and he was actually approached by the police when he was recovering at the hospital. It was Kruger who came to Adam and told him that the police would train and support him if he agreed to work undercover missions for them since his bravery had impressed them too. Adam Franco had agreed and had therefore been doing such secretive missions for the French authority for the past twenty years.
Seeing young Jonathan feel lonely and threatened amidst his family of hardened gangsters struck a chord in Adam’s heart. He must have remembered his brother and the other young boys of similar age for whom he had stood up to fight, and therefore, Adam always remains committed to protecting young children. When Amet’s plan of looting Victor’s men after the bank robbery fails since Adam and his group killed off each of the attackers, the man is angered by the whole situation. Amet had risked the lives of his men for the money, and yet he had earned nothing. At present, he decides to go out all guns blazing against Victor and get Jonathan kidnapped from the zoo. Amet then calls up Natalya and threatens to kill Jonathan if he is not paid his money. While Amet believes that Victor would agree to pay the large ransom in order to free his stepson, Victor seems least interested, and he tells Natalya that he would never pay the ransom money as it was against his principles. With Victor now showing no hurry to free the boy and Natalya and Helene helpless, Adam realizes that he will have to step up and save young Jonathan.
After being informed by Natalya, Adam decides to abandon his original mission of locating Moktar Al Tayeb and instead go over to rescue Jonathan. The man had earlier placed tracking devices on many of Victor’s cars, and one such car had been used by Amet’s men to take away the kid. Adam tracks this same car and reaches Amet’s safehouse, where he single-handedly takes all the guards down and then successfully rescues Jonathan and takes him back to his mother and sister.
Was Moktar Al Tayeb Really The Perpetrator Behind The Hotel Bombing?
Based on his investigation into the whole matter, Adam finds out that it is actually Pee Wee who is the connecting source between Victor Pastore and Moktar Al Tayeb. As it turns out, Pee Wee, or Assan, as his real name is, is actually a relative of Al Tayeb, and he enabled the meeting between him and Victor. Adam now tracks Assan’s phone to locate where Al Tayeb is since he alone has to take down the supposed terrorist. When Kruger had given Adam this secretive mission, two other agents named Cisko and Mona had also been assigned to the case. Cisko had tailed Al Tayeb and had been killed by Assan, who only wanted to protect Moktar, and Mona had been killed by Victor’s men after they had found out that Adam was working for the police. Therefore, there was now only Adam left to carry out the mission. In an earlier call recording of Al Tayeb, the police had learned that the man was collecting money for some operation that was intended to take place the next day, and this meant that they had to stop the man in time. However, when Adam finally reaches the safehouse and confronts Al Tayeb and Assan, he learns the truth, which is quite different from what he has been told so far.
Moktar Al Tayeb was no terrorist but a politician from South Sudan. He had indeed been a warlord once, fighting for the independence of his country, and had then found support from the French government. However, after South Sudan’s independence, the French government cared very little about the people’s welfare and was only interested in reaping profits from the country’s natural oil deposits. Senator Marconnet had worked closely with Al Tayeb throughout this time, but he was under political and diplomatic pressure when the Sudanese man started protesting against the evil French government. As an urgent way to deal with this pressure, Marconnet and the French administration had planned to invite Al Tayeb to the country and then kill him and his family. The explosion at the hotel was actually planned to kill Al Tayeb, but his security personnel managed to protect him and his injured daughter. Al Tayeb was actually hiding during all this time, and it was not because he wanted to orchestrate any terrorist attack. The operation that he had spoken of in the recorded phone conversation was a literal medical operation on his young daughter that would heal the girl’s fatal injuries.
The woman Adam kills in the very first scene of “AKA” was actually an international journalist called Sonia Gautier, who had researched the topic of Western intervention into African countries and politics. Gautier was supposed to speak on this issue at a UN conference in the coming months, and it was probably the French government that got her kidnapped by the militant group. Kruger, possibly, then sent Adam to kill the journalist so that it would look like she had been killed by the militants.
Ending Explained: What Happens To Adam And Al Tayeb?
Right after Adam is told all of this by the Sudanese man, the place is swarmed by RAID policemen, who had probably been tracking Adam too and had therefore found the location. Another extensive shootout follows, in which the innocent Moktar Al Tayeb is immediately killed. Before his death, though, he stressed on his last wish of keeping his young daughter alive, and Adam now tries to achieve this very intention. Adam and Assan manage to get the girl into an ambulance and escape the hideout after gunning through the policemen who are ready to kill them.
With Al Tayeb dead, the French government’s secret mission does end successfully, but Adam manages to leak information about Marconnet’s corruption, which is published in the daily newspapers. While this surely would lead to Marconnet’s downfall, Kruger struggles to wipe out each of the individuals who could reveal about Adam and their secretive plan, including Victor and his wife, Natalya. Assan keeps Al Tayeb’s daughter safe, and the two would now stay on as a family together. At the end of “AKA,” Jonathan is taken to the child protection service after his parents have been found dead, and Helene tries to get in touch with him. It is finally Adam who gets the boy and reunites him with his elder sister Helene, who will build their lives together from here on. Kruger arrives here too, possibly to kill the two children, but Adam plays the role of a protector one last time and kills Kruger to ensure Helene and Jonathan’s safety.
