'' The Philadelphia Inquirer '' published a review by Carrie Rickey , who wrote , " Under the obvious influence of Francis Ford Coppola , Bouchareb frames his shadow-ridden guerrilla heroes as the Algerian counterparts of the Corleones " , referring to the American film '' The Godfather '' , and further that '' Outside the Law '' owes " an enormous debt to Jean-Pierre Melville 's '' Army of Shadows '' ( 1969 ) , about French resistance fighters one-minded in their goal to subvert Nazis " . Rickey wrote , " Bouchareb is sometimes a little too one-minded : His movie might have been richer emotionally had he written scenes showing the characters ' domestic lives and not strictly their professional spheres . " Stephen Holden of '' The New York Times '' called '' Outside the Law '' a " didactic , unashamedly manipulative film " , and also saw parallels to '' The Godfather '' and '' Army of Shadows '' : " Those are mighty shoes to fill , and as powerful and well-made as it is , '' Outside the Law '' is too schematic and single-minded to lodge itself in your mind as a fully realized cinematic epic . Its few female characters are sketchy at best . " Before the film premiered , already it was met by political controversy and nationalist-oriented criticism in France . Lionnel Luca , a member of the National Assembly for the UMP , appealed for a review by the Defence Historical Service as soon as he heard about the project . Guy Pervillé deplored the inevitable acceptance by moviegoers of the film as representing historical truth . The Defence Historical Service claimed that " the errors and anachronisms are so many and so gross that they can be identified by any historian ... The numerous improbabilities present in the scenario show that the writing of the latter was not preceded by a serious historical study . " The center of the controversy was the depiction of the 1945 Sétif massacre early in the film . The report elaborated , " The director wants to suggest that on May 8 , 1945 , Muslims in Sétif were blindly massacred by Europeans , whereas it 's the contrary that transpired . ... A ll historians agree that ... Europeans lashed out against Muslims in response to Muslims massacring Europeans . " This reaction is at odds with mainstream history , which concluded that , after restoring order in the town , French military and police then carried out a series of reprisals and summary executions of native civilians . Before even seeing the film , Luca also criticized the decision to give public funding to a film which he considered " anti-French " . Mustapha Orif , one of the film 's co-producers , responded to the accusations and defended the film 's portrayal of the massacre . " Rachid Bouchareb interviewed many people , witnesses and historians . From this point of view , I do not think at all that he has deviated from historical reality , " he said
Sétif massacre
Sétif and Guelma massacre
Outside the Law (2010 film)