Army of Crime

ARMY OF CRIME tells an extraordinary true story of the French Resistance during WWII. In German-occupied Paris, poet and factory worker Missak Manouchian (Simon Abkarian) led a courageous group of immigrant fighters to sabotage the Nazi regime. Made up of young Jews, Poles, Hungarians, Romanians, Italians, Spaniards and Armenians, this heroically ragtag group committed nearly all acts of armed resistance in the capital between March and November 1943, before a series of arrests broke their ranks. Director Robert Guédiguian dramatizes their tale, bringing to life their acts of everyday sabotage from bombing Nazi hangouts to assassinating brutal generals, all the while being hounded by the Vichy French police, who use double-agents and macabre tortures to bring them in. In the middle of it all, Manouchian's love for his strong-willed wife Mélinée (the luminous Virginie Ledoyen) reminds them of the liberty they're fighting for. The noble and tragic story of these immigrants, who died for the republican ideals of France, is poetically brought to life in this epic film. (official distributor synopsis)