Based on Maurice Leblanc books about Arsène Lupin, the gentleman thief, Lupin follows Assane Diop (Omar Sy, The Intouchables, Jurassic Park, X-Men) who currently works as a cleaner at the famous Parisian museum, the Louvre. However, he has far higher aspirations. He plans to steal a diamond necklace which Marie Antoinette had once been gifted by her husband, Louis XVI. Those who are assuming that he only wants to turn the necklace into money will be surprised to learn that there is a deeper meaning to this con.
25 years ago, Assane’s father Babakar (Fargass Assandé), an immigrant from Senegal and single father, tries to give his son a better life in Paris by working as a driver for a wealthy family, the Pellegrinis. One day he is accused of having stolen the necklace of the empress out of Hubert Pellegrini’s (Hervé Pierre) safe. Out of shame, his father commits suicide in jail and leaves poor Assane as an orphan.
Years later, the Pellegrinis want to sell the necklace for charity. Assane, inspired by the gentleman thief of which he was gifted a book by his father before his death, sees his chance for revenge.
As the story evolves you get some hints as to what was the real reason for the necklace going missing as well as what happened before Barbarak’s suicide. What does Pellegrini’s wife, Anne (Nicole Garcia) and the investigator Gabriel Dumont (Vincent Garanger) have to do with it?
At first Lupin, which released January 8th on Netflix, looks like just another fun con story with the one and only Omar Sy in the leading role. It most definitely entertains you for around three and a half hours while transporting you to France for a short time. However, it shortly turns into a light crime story in which you will start to fear for the wellbeing of some characters, whilst also facing a major topic of our current society.
Assane is a Black immigrant and an orphan at the age of 14. His only friends are those he made in childhood (or so it seems over the course of five episodes) and are Benjamin Ferel (Antoine Gouy) and Claire (Ludivine Sagnier), with the latter being his on and off girlfriend and the mother to his son, Raoul (Etan Simon). Throughout his whole life, he has to face racism on top of not being able to trust people due to what has happened to his father.
It is interesting to see how this is picked up and made a side topic throughout the series. A short sentence in the first episode within a fast-paced conversation made it brutally clear as to why Assane knows that he will get away with pretty much everything until proved otherwise.
“You didn’t look at me. You saw me, but you didn’t look at me. Just like they don’t look at us. Those I work for, who live up there, while we live down here. Those at the top don’t look at the bottom. Thanks to that, we’ll be rich.”
Let that sink in. Based on the shows I’ve watched, I don’t think any other series has woven the issue of racism into their main plot so naturally. Assane turns this into his advantage (if you can call it that) and because “every Black guy looks like the next Black guy” to get where he wants to be. This is followed by how “lower class” individuals can easily be framed, because of course such a person has to be the thief since they need the money or whichever other cliché.
For those who have seen one or two other crime series, they will know where some situations lead. There is a potential police corruption and silence of media. The fact that someone can leave all moral behind and sell themselves for money as well as what this power through money can do to those, who are left alone on the battlefield in their fight for justice.
For now, there are only five episodes available, but it is confirmed that there will be at least five more and they will be released in the next few months according to Netflix. With 17 novels and 39 novellas in total, there is a lot of material from which you can spin a story from!
