Review: Lupin updates classic French gentleman thief for the 21st century

Enlarge / Omar Sy stars as Assane Diop, looking every bit the contemporary version of Arsene Lupin, famed French fictional gentleman thief. (credit: Netflix)

Netflix has kicked off 2021 with a bang, thanks to its new series, Lupin, starring French actor and comedian Omar Sy. This delightful contemporary reimagining of a classic character in French detective fiction, Arsene Lupin-a gentleman thief and master of disguise who was essentially the French equivalent of Sherlock Holmes-is a massive hit. According to Deadline Hollywood, Lupin is on track to top 70 million households in its first 28 days of release, beating out two other recent Netflix smash hits, Bridgerton (63 million households) and The Queen's Gambit (62 million households).

(Some spoilers below, but no major reveals.)

As I've written previously, Arsene Lupin is the creation of Maurice Leblanc, who based the character partly on a French burglar/anarchist. Leblanc was also familiar with the gentleman thief featured in the work of Octave Mirbeau as well as E.W. Hornung's famed gentleman thief, A.J. Raffles, and he also knew about Rocambole, a character whose adventures were recounted in a series of stories published between 1857 and 1870 by Pierre Alexis Ponson du Terrail.

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