David R. Walker

Le Mohican

Director: Frederic Farrucci

Cast: Alexis Manenti, Mara Taquin, Paul Garette, Marie-Pierre Nouveau

Running Time: 1 hour 27 minutes

Language: French with English subtitles

Film Rating: 7 out of 10

Festival: The European Film Festival

French director Frederic Farucci combines the beauty of Corsica with a shadowy mafia in his new thriller Le Mohican (The Mohican) about a goat herder Joseph Cardelli who has a beautiful plot of land on the coast which greedy developers want to take from him and which he refuses to sell.

Cardelli well played by Alexis Manenti becomes a fugitive on the island and soon reaches folklore status after he accidentally kills the nephew of a Parisian crime boss, and subsequently goes on the run.

His tech savvy niece Vannina played by Mara Taquin makes Joseph an island hero on social media using the hashtag #LeMohican as he deftly evades the gangsters who also have the police on their payroll. Despite his efforts to escape to Sardinia, Joseph needs to confront the gangsters and protect his right to exist in an island which is beautiful yet increasingly becoming a target for crime, overdevelopment and urbanization.

Le Mohican had its world premiere at the 2024 Venice Film Festival and is worth watching with a strong narrative about a fugitive, a decent and honest goat herder who stands up for his rights to continue existing in a pastoral fashion and not give in to the greed and corruption of organized crime.

With exquisite cinematography by Jeanne Lapoirie, Le Mohican is a gripping action film about survival and resilience while the continual threat of being hunted takes its bloody toll on the hero Joseph Cardelli. The violence is systemic and shocking while the storyline is straightforward with sparse dialogue which could have been elaborated upon.

Like many islands in the Mediterranean, Corsica is in danger of being over commercialized and Le Mohican shines a light on this issue as greedy mobsters plan on developing land meant for farming.

Le Mohican focuses on the story of an ordinary man’s survival and his niece’s uncanny ability to turn him into a local hero with the nickname the Mohican, the last of the coastal goat herders.

With a beautiful backdrop, Le Mohican gets a film rating of 7 out of 10 and is recommended viewing as a genre action film about one ordinary man fighting the mafia in a storyline which is distinctly French and unassuming. Worth seeing.

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