French actor Omar Sy is having a moment, and it’s been a long time coming. Even since his breakout role in the critical hit The Intouchables, Sy has spent the last decade bouncing between minor supporting roles in American blockbusters (X-Men: Days of Future Past and Jurassic World) and providing French overdubs for animated films (The Angry Birds Movie and Soul). He did find success in his native France, starring in the crime film On the Other Side of the Tracks. But it wasn’t until his lead part as the irresistible, titular gentleman thief in the Netflix heist series Lupin that he found a second wave.
Now he’s riding that crest as a similarly charming character in a sequel to On the Other Side of the Tracks, the Louis Leterrier-directed buddy-cop movie The Takedown. In this film, Leterrier’s first French-language feature, Sy returns as Captain Ousmane Diakhité, a rising star in the Parisian police force who gains greater notoriety after he busts an MMA fight, taking down a brawny pugilist in the process, and video of the action goes viral.
His crime-solving skills are tested, however, when a decapitated torso mysteriously appears on a train. It’s discovered by Diakhité’s vain former partner, François Monge (Laurent Lafitte). In spite of François’s rich cologne and tailored clothes, he’s just a regular officer relegated to a precinct after several attempts to apply for a promotion. He sees this case as his big break, and he teams with Diakhité to venture into a racist French enclave to solve the murder.