The Nest AKA Nid de Guepes [2002]

July 1, 2022

Those fucking Frenchies, they sure know how to make a juicy and no-bullshit action movie. The Nest is beautifully directed, deliciously violent, and finally, a very stylish action movie. I could tell it was going to be awesome just by seeing that opening scene. You know how those bad and mediocre movies always start with something pertaining to the story or characters. Here, we open with a guy trying to fight off a wasp while he’s enjoying his wine and cigarettes. Boy, are we in France or what? It’s these little things that I love so much. No boring character development, no tedious plot points, just a story streamlined for action.

We meet all of our characters as they’re preparing to pull off one of the most important missions of their lives. For some, that mission will be the transport of a highly valuable prisoner and for others, it will be something else entirely. Speaking of characters, The Nest is also one of those movies where we don’t get the “good bad guys”. No, these are ruthless assassins willing to do anything and everything to get the job done.

Something that’s more realistic when it comes to any mafia and not just Albanian If you’ve seen Hyena, a gritty British thriller about a corrupt detective trying to take down a small Albanian gang, you’ll know what I’m talking about. You feel this war tribe vibe with them, especially when the head honcho lets them know he’s alive. And our crew also has no qualms about killing people who are trying to kill them. We skip the whole morality play that usually plagues these types of movies.

And yes, you can compare it to Die Hard or Carpenter’s masterpiece Assault on Precinct 13. However, I think that The Nest offers something different. A breath of fresh and yet old-school air into a genre that’s become a bit stale. After a suspenseful build-up once the shooting starts it fucking continues ’till the end of the movie! I didn’t do a body count but there will be a lot of dead people here. The movie uses a very simple but incredibly effective premise. It’s also quite realistic for the most part.

Granted, the bad guys do die a bit too easily but perhaps this is just our perception of things generated by Hollywood standards. In real life, I guess people go down quite easily and permanently. I also have to notice that gunfire also sounds different, a bit lighter, like everyone involved is using suppressors. To counter that we have the very definition of the show don’t tell rule. In fact, to keep their positions a secret the team uses hand signals. Pure fucking gold.

Bastille Day is a very special day for anyone who lives in France. Not only there’s a huge parade in Paris but everything works a little bit differently. However, for some people, this is a day just like any other. Especially for the members of French special forces transporting the head of the Albanian mafia to prison. The same goes for a group of thieves who want to take advantage of the celebrations. What follows is simply a huge fucking clusterfuck.

The cast is confidently led by Samy Naceri whom you might remember from a more casual French action movie Taxi. We also have Benoit Magimel (Carbone) and Sami Bouajila (Braqueurs). However, Nadia Farès and Richard Sammel stole the show here as two tough members of the French special forces. The moment Sammel put on that fucking ballistic mask you know shit is going to be serious. Although we did get a lot of hints at that with those scenes showing just how many bullets and guns are going into action. They kind of reminded me of Deadly Prey and its iconic intro.

I urge you to check out The Nest before it gets a Hollywood reboot, just like Cash Truck did. And while Guy Ritchie’s Wrath of Man is a solid movie, it still doesn’t have the same energy as the original. This brings me to the point that this is also a single motherfucking location movie! Yes, it’s like they went down the list of all the things I like and then made a movie. I also loved the dynamic camerawork, bringing you closer to the action.

Finally, if you’re looking for movies like The Nest, I first recommend you check out Free Fire followed by The Raid: Redemption. After that, you can take a look at Extraction and Triple Frontier. Now, all of these are fairly modern movies so if you’re looking for something more old-school, there’s always Walter Hill’s classic Trespass.