A Man of Action (Netflix, 2022)

The Spanish movie A Man of Action (Un hombre de acción) is a new but at the same time rather old fashioned crime drama film based on the life of Spanish anarchist, bricklayer and bankrobber Lucio Urtubia. 

The movie is directed by Javier Ruiz Caldera from a screenplay by Patxi Amezcua which stars Juan José Ballesta in a fine performance as Uturbia.

The movie begins with a quote from Bertold Brecht, who wrote that even though it is a crime to rob a bank it is a far greater crime to own a bank.

Uturbia's hatred of banks began with an episode in his youth the local bank manager didn't want to lend young Lucio the money to get his dying father the morphine he needed to subdue his pain.

Ten years later Lucio, having escaped from Franco’s fascist Spain, is living with his sister in Paris, where he begins to work as a bricklayer and comes into contact with the anarchist community that rejects all authority.

From that moment it is only logical that he became a bankrobber. Wait, what? Well, it is, if you believe robbing banks is the best way to undermine the international financial system, which keeps people in metaphorical chains. But then, I’ve never been much of an anarchist. Still, for my money, it beats fascism any time of the day.

Uturbia is presented throughout as some sort of Robin Hood (which also happened to be his nickname). Legendary anarchist bankrobber Quico Sabaté (played with gleeful joy by Miki Esparbé) taught him to give one third of his earnings to the anarchist movement, another third to fellow criminals in jail and their families, and too keep only one third of the loot for his crew and himself.

After meeting the lovely Anne (Liah O’Prey, giving off strong Marion Cotillard vibes), spending some time in jail and becoming a father, Uturbia became more careful for the next eight years.

After that his biggest achievement was forging a large-scale expropriation scam aimed at the First National City Bank, which takes up most of the back half of the movie.

In all, this fine looking period drama takes place from the 1940’s til the 1980’s, but is primarily set in Paris in the sixties and seventies.

It’s all entertaining enough, in a derivative Ocean's Eleven kind of way. Like most historical drama's, the movie takes a lot of liberties with the truth while retaining the essence of the man’s life.

All in all, it’s an old fashioned romp about robbers trying to fool the authorities and the police. I think the movie could have been more interesting had it allowed for a somewhat more critical, slightly less naive view of the anarchist movement. But as a fan of the caper genre, I enjoyed it.