The Assault/L’assaut, based on a true story that happened at Algiers airport on December 24, 1994, puts the passengers on the front row seat of a deadly force of terrorism. The film deals with a terror strike on an Air France flight headed for Paris from Algiers. The plane in question was hijacked in a plot to crash into the Eiffel Tower. Fortunately, due to the tactics of the defense and the bravery of the French Special Forces, the plot never came to fruition.

Directed by young filmmaker Julien Leclercq, this explosive psychological thriller engages you from the first scene to the last. I found myself emotionally involved in the unfolding events of its harrowing true story, the outcome of which does not deter from the growing interest of how everything unfolds.

Thierry (Vincent Elbaz), a veteran SWAT officer and a father of a charming young girl, risks his life every day for the safety of his country and citizens by taking down violent perpetrators of gang and terror-related activity. But he never faced a situation quite like this one. When four terrorists from the Algerian Armed Islamic Group hijack a plane to crash it into the Eiffel Tower, Thierry leads his team inside the plane to take down the armed terrorists, who are led by Yahia (Aymen Saidi). Saidi’s unpredictable performance seems disturbingly realistic and memorable. Even though I went into the film knowing how it would end, the means of getting there was at times unpredictable, and was one of the ingredients that focused my attention on the screen.

This film boasts an aesthetic visual style, which Leclercq is known for using both in filmmaking and advertising. His intuitive use of the documentary-style handheld camera, the soundtracks, the psychological beats, coupled with real footage seems perfect for an action drama like this one, where a redundancy in wordy dialogue usually detracts from the storytelling. I admire how this story focuses more on the visual retelling of its emotional and psychological elements rather than on cumbersome dialogue found in many similar films, and I think this focus on visual style becomes the film’s most powerful ingredient.

The Assault shows that terrorism holds no cultural, national, or even religious bias -- it has no bounds or ends in achieving its goal, even at the cost of its own life. The passengers on board the Air France flight are of various races, nationalities, and religions, including a Muslim family who were also terrorized. Perhaps this film would cause mixed crowd reactions, especially in France where a battle with extremism is reaching new heights every week. But at the end of the film, there’s no feeling of antipathy toward a country, a people, or a religion; only one [natural] feeling emerges -- to save and preserve life, not to take it.

The Assault/L’assaut is a 2011 Tribeca Film Festival North American premiere

(Released by Elle Driver; not rated by MPAA.)