Reviewed on 5.18.15 by The Hollywood Reporter‘s Boyd van Hoeij: “The hunt for a teenage French girl who’s gone to the subcontinent to follow her possibly jihadist boyfriend turns her family into modern ‘searchers’ in Les Cowboys, the promising feature debut of celebrated French screenwriter Thomas Bidegain.

“Unlike the films he’s co-written for Jacques Audiard (A Prophet, Rust and Bone), which often rely on Audiard’s stunning capacity to foreground grand emotional sweeps, this is a much more constructed narrative that could only be described as a writer’s film, though one with several pleasant — if shocking is your idea of pleasant, that is — surprises up its sleeve.

“A plump cameo from John C. Reilly both compensates for some weaknesses in the film’s second half, and adds a potentially marketable face to a Francophone cast headlined by a superb Francois Damiens that will help in France but is practically unknown offshore. Festivals and upscale arthouse distributors will come along for the ride.”