Netflix has become the home for underrated and overlooked titles this year, covering everything from horror oddities to star vehicles. While some random movies do show up on the service’s top 10 lists, many of these end up being worth a rewatch, or seen for the first time if missed upon their initial release. The latest example of this trend is the 2016 Idris Elba film Bastille Day, which is currently top of the Netflix US most-watched movies chart, and is even beating out the likes of The Devil All the Time.
Also known as The Take, Bastille Day stars Elba as CIA agent Sean Briar, who gets drawn into a Paris-set plot involving an explosive bomb and Richard Madden’s American pickpocket. It’s nothing groundbreaking as far as action flicks go, but it gets the job done. English director James Watkins was behind the camera, having built a solid career off the back of The Woman in Black and Eden Lake, and he delivers more than a few exhilarating scenes throughout the movie.
Unfortunately, Bastille Day experienced a number of distribution delays, most notably due to its proximity to several real-life terrorist attacks in France, while critics were pretty unmoved by the picture. Elba seems to have emerged with his strong reputation intact, though, and it may well be the appeal of the actor that’s driving Bastille Day‘s current success on Netflix. In any case, it’s not quite as bad as its Rotten Tomatoes score of 48% would have you believe and is worth a watch for fans of the genre.
Of course, Elba hasn’t had much luck with leading cinematic roles so far, at least compared to his more effective supporting parts in everything from the MCU to Hobbs & Shaw. After being involved in the doomed Cats last year, though, the actor will be hoping that his contribution to 2021’s The Suicide Squad will produce a friendlier response from audiences and reviewers. For now, however, Bastille Day is available on Netflix for anyone curious to check it out.
