As a French Resistance thriller, “Free Men” is so-so, but it is driven by a mischievously interesting idea: that Muslims and Jews have more in common than they normally allow.
The story is seen through the eyes of a secular young Algerian Muslim, Younes (Tahar Rahim, the star of “A Prophet”) who is working the angles of the black market in Occupied Paris. Sweated by the police in the Vichy government, he agrees to spy on activities at a mosque whose leader is the wily and politically connected Ben Ghabrit (Michael Lonsdale). Through a friendship with a Jewish cabaret singer (Mahmoud Shalaby), Younes gradually gets drawn into the Resistance, which in his little corner involves Muslims manufacturing false identity papers so that Jews can pass for Muslims and survive.
A plodding pace makes the film a long sit, and the coolly controlled Rahim is a bit of a cipher as an actor, maintaining slightly too much composure during his run-ins with suspicious authorities. Still, the interplay of Muslim and Jewish interests creates some moments of strange irony, as when German soldiers, suspecting Younes of being Jewish, order him to drop his pants — and conclude that he is. (Jews, like Muslims, favor circumcision, whereas European Christians generally don’t.) The underlying message is that it’s a shame that it required mutual opposition to Nazis for Jews and Muslims to work together.