Vincent Cassel is an undercover DJ in Netflix's Banger

Tracksuit in acetate and a chain around the neck. Vincent Cassel is DJ Scorpex in the film Banger by So Me, which since April 2 has been among the most-watched feature films on Netflix in France. The character has a backstory: after directing a six-episode series in 2021 titled 6 X Confiné.e.s, the director recalls the Parisian actor, who appeared in the same role, to now entrust him with an entire adventure. An undercover mission in the world of techno parties and DJ stardom from which the protagonist Scorpex seems to have been forgotten. A career that started with a timeless hit released fifteen years earlier and that over time relegated him to minor appearances and the glory of past days. Even if Scorpex likes to reiterate that there will be no big comeback for him since he never left, with Cassel choosing to temporarily shed the auteur aura he is often seen wearing to focus on a light and offbeat project. At times disjointed and humorous also for this reason, although the arrival of the film on Netflix was not exactly met with a positive reception, it tries to overcome any criticism with beats and carry out the protagonist’s task: unmask a criminal gangster hiding behind the psychedelic and pumping facade of electronic music.

One certainly cannot say that Banger is a comedy that brings something new to the genre or that Cassel’s protagonist remains among the characters we would periodically want to see again, but it seems too harsh a judgment that does not find in the film a deliberately and playfully carefree tone. A police operation in which Scorpex finds himself entangled and which he would rather have nothing to do with, but which could allow him to knock out his young rival – Mister V’s Vestax, who also stole the X from his name – and perhaps help give a bit of fuel back to his life, now made up of performances interrupted to make room for the star of the moment and live streams from his own living room. If the story may not be exciting, there is still an aesthetic that makes the work appreciable, pleasant to watch, and with a personality that reflects both the characters’ traits and the environment it portrays. Inevitable given So Me’s background, also a graphic designer and animator, as well as art director of the Ed Banger Records label, who shows he knows well the scene he’s talking about, with disputes among artists and strategies to make one’s image as appealing as the music itself.

But if between locations and lights, colors and costumes it does justice to a well-crafted and suitable staging, it’s in the script co-written with Agnès Feuvre and Elias Belkeddar that it shows uncertainty. The comedic moments are saved, they are not striking, but they lighten the tone and are well inhabited by the protagonists, first and foremost Vincent Cassel. It’s in tying together the plot threads that So Me doesn’t quite know how to extricate himself, a bit like his police agents, ending up living more from situations than from narrative linearity. Sketches and humorous digressions that are then strung together one by one to lay out a flawed story, still capable of bringing the pop comedy to completion. Banger resonates with good intentions and tries its best like Scorpex and, just like the protagonist, sometimes manages to hit the right rhythm while in others, despite the effort, it struggles more.