This is not the first film about life on the grey proletarian fringes of Paris, but it is certainly one of the best Newcomer hdi Charef, who wrote and directed from his own quasi-autobiographlcal 1983 novel, is a 32-year-old Algerian immigrant who was a factory worker most of his life. Charef chronicles the daily lives of his two petty delinquents, intercutting them at times with the lives of their families, friends and neighbours. Pat, the French boy, does not work because he doesn't want to, preferring to sponge off his barmaid mother Madjid cannot find a job, partly because he is an Arab. partly because he is not motivated. The two boys are inseparable buddies, hanging out together, picking up girls or prostitutes together, committing acts of pimping, burglary or muggings together Charef's handling of the digressive narrative is sober and confident, finding the right angle and distance on incidents without giving a global feeling of gratuitous sordidness. The theme of the two youth's friendship is remarkably rendered, in that it is never stressed.