A gripping tale of grit and greed from the backstreets of Paris

Ever since the end of the French masterpiece Le Bureau, I have been looking for a thriller of comparable intensity to commit to. I may just have found it, again on SBS. And again, it’s French but global in scope, and again, like Le Bureau, dominated by the figure of a loner. Who can forget the beaky Malotru, the rogue spy who refused to play by the rules? 

This time, our hero is not a spy, but someone with a much less glamorous job description: a senior customs inspector, Simon Weynachter, played with a melancholy quality (for reasons that soon become apparent) by well-known actor Vincent Lindon, whose weary, weathered visage has graced many feature films.

And this time, the narrative is not fictional, but based on the true story of a crime described, perhaps with a touch of hyperbole, as the scam of the century. Or maybe it was at the time.

Of Money and Blood tells the story of two petty crim Tunisian Jews from the working class Paris suburb of Belleville: Fitoussi (the flamboyant front man, played with swagger by Ramzy Bedia and Bouli (David Ayala as the math brains) who hit upon the idea of creaming off billions in VAT from a fake carbon tax scheme they set up in partnership with a handsome playboy trader Jerome Attias (based on the equally suave real-life fraudster, Arnaud Mimran), who is intent on a get-rich-quick scheme to prove himself to his father-in-law, a scion of the Jewish establishment.

One of the many layers of tension written into the taut, fast-paced scripts is the cultural collision between the streetwise Sephardi swindlers and the showy Ashkenazi businessmen, which I have not seen deployed in a drama before.

Always big noting himself, Attias boasts of funding his friend Netanyahu’s political campaign; in real life, Netanyahu, who has been photographed holidaying with Mimran, denies the amounts involved.

Real life tragedy nearly stopped the drama from being completed when the actor originally cast to play Attias, Gaspard Ulliel, died in a skiing accident on a break from shooting. After a hiatus, series director Xavier Giannol decided that Ulliel’s friend Niels Schneider would replace him in the miniseries.

Perhaps that subterranean trauma adds to the intensity of the performances, in a plot full of twists, many of them reflecting poorly on French political bureaucracy under pressure.

The series was originally going to be called Tikkun, the Hebrew word for mending, and used in the series in the phrase Tikkun Olam, meaning to heal the world (and the neat opposite of that other great foreign one-word title, Fauda, appropriately the word for chaos in both Arabic and Hebrew).

Early in the series (this is not a spoiler) it becomes clear that Weynachter has Jewish origins, which he reconnects with during the episodes set in Israel, in scenes of reflective dialogue that are a welcome break from rapid-fire financial and procedural exchanges that can leave the viewer feeling slightly overwhelmed.

My only gripe with the series so far is that whenever it comes to showing criminals enjoying the fruits of their misdeeds, it’s always the same: naked girls, snorting cocaine, pool parties becoming orgies. Enough, already: show us something new, please, to express excess. For example: I’ve noticed on Instagram that Russian oligarchs have a fondness for big cats as pets, and while I loathe the idea of confining these creatures, it shows an appreciation for beauty and danger that is more interesting than cavorting with hookers.

Infuriatingly, SBS has chosen to break off the first series after six episodes. But we don’t have long to wait for the second half to screen in June. I’m particularly intrigued to see how Attias’ uptown wife, played by Judith Chemla, develops.

So far we’ve seen her as both steely and fragile, defiant and afraid, torn between her father’s wealth and her husband’s bad boy sex appeal. The scenes between her and Weynachter crackle with tension created by a cocktail of dislike, contempt and something that unsettles them both.

Will the greed of the three main protagonists prompt them to betray each other? How will Weynachter, impeded by the obstacles of French law and officialdom, crack the case? And who will be left alive at the end to face justice?

The French for To Be Continued is A Suivre. I can’t wait.