Taxi 5: “We could no longer release the lines of the first films today without creating major controversy”

Malik Bentalha shares with Franck Gastambide the poster for this action film to be seen again this weekend on TF1. Back to the “taxi generation”.

Taxi 5directed by Franck Gastambide, will return this Sunday on TF1. When it was released in the spring of 2018, First had met his entire team, not stingy with revelations and anecdotes. Flashback.

How does Taxi 5 manage the legacy of the Taxi saga?

On a dive “taxi generation” of our hat to the song of El Matador which illustrates the end credits of Cab 4 (2007). The Taxi of discord, the one where Samy Naceri – then in full free fall – only appears at brief intervals. The one who made the fewest admissions (4.5 million, anyway), and who plunged the franchise into limbo until the Gastambide / Bentalha duo arrived at Luc Besson to pitch him a reboot.

If from the revenue point of view the series had nothing to prove (more than 27 million entries on the counter before the release of the 5th episode), is there a “Taxi generation” ? For Malik Bentalha, who plays the “worst Uber driver in Marseille” in Taxi 5it’s undeniable. “Taxi represents so many things, for me, for my friends… It’s the first time in France that an Arab has become the megastar of an action comedy.” Taxi and Taxi 2released in 1998 and 2000, take on a nostalgic color with age, retrospectively idealizing a united France, winner of the 98 World Cup, where cops and thugs play car races without consequences. “I wore Zidane’s shirt all the time. See it worn by Samy in Taxi 2it was becoming historic.“In a single picture, Taxi 2 made a stroke of marketing genius and the film reached 10 million admissions. Twenty years later, no more World Cups to celebrate national unity. Naceri has not become the new Belmondo but subscribed to news items (“He’s a superstar in Russia“, sighs Bentalha). And it does not appear in this new Besson production.

Taxi 5 is a successful comedy (review)

“We couldn’t even release the lines of the first films today without creating big controversy, adds the actor. It was another time.” The success of Taxi with a generation of spectators born after 1990 is that Besson was able to speak very clearly to the children of the time. “I had dreams of being behind the wheel… Every time we passed a dealership, I would ask my dad to buy me a 406. You know, I was 9 when the movie came out. I saw it in my cinema in Laudun-L’Ardoise, in the Gard. I had cheated. A friend paid for his place, he came in and opened the door for us. We returned at fifteen after him. It makes me think that I therefore owe 8 euros to Luc Besson.”

Here is an interview with Franck Gastambide who talks about Taxi 5 on video:

The funny story of the Taxi saga at the box office

As well as a montage explaining the absence of the original star:

Taxi 5 can also be seen on Première Max