3 days maximum: Did Tarek Budal really climb the 330-meter tower?

Three years after the action comedy 30 Days Max, Tarek Budal is back with a sequel titled 3 Days Max. In this feature film, the actor and director once again surrounds himself with his collaborators Vanessa Guide, Philippe Lachaux, Julien Arout and Élode Fontan.

Budal stars as Ryan, a not-so-talented cop who travels to Mexico to rescue his grandmother (Marie-Anne Chazelle) from a dangerous cartel.

He will then have to fight (more or less successfully), resist a torture session, be strapped to a helicopter during flight and climb a 330 meter high tower… a scene that will not remind you of Mission: Impossible Ghost. Protocol in which Tom Cruise climbs the Burj Khalifa tower.

And it’s normal since then Tarek Budal He is an unconditional fan of the actor and largely thanks to the latter he performs his stunts.

He explains in the press kit: “The idea was to make an American-style action comedy. It needed spectacular sequences, and because I wanted Mission: Impossible to parody, especially the scene where Tom Cruise climbs the famous Burj Khalifa tower in Dubai, I chose Abu Dhabi. The Conrad Tower, which is the size of the Eiffel Tower.”

During our meeting to promote his film, Tarek Budali told us:I am a fan of Tom Cruise and Jean-Paul Belmondo. They do crazy stunts, and as a viewer, when I watch their film and think that they are doing their own stunts, it makes me even more immersed in the action.

That’s why I do stunts myself. without cheating. I end up doing stunts in real settings, but everything is safe, of course. Even though it’s a comedy, I wanted to convey that feeling to the viewers who go to see this film.“

For the purposes of his third feature film, Tarek Budal peacefully climbed the 330-meter tower, as shown in a video the actor posted on Instagram.

The latter tells us:I was fine. It was very difficult to put together, so I was happy to be able to do this sequence. Just thinking about the release of the film, I told myself that I couldn’t wait to see the audience.“

How was the tower scene filmed?

For the best performance of this stunt, the actor has prepared with stunt chef Christophe Marceau. The latter specially developed a winch system for the film, which did not exist before, and tested it on a ten-meter high building in Bray-sur-Marne before using it in Abu Dhabi.

Because Conrad Tower was only available for a limited time, the team was unable to rehearse on site. Three days were planned to shoot the drone footage, the cart footage, and the interior when the two businessmen (producers Christophe Cervone and Mark Fishman) see Ryan climbing.

But on the eve of the shooting, the time was reduced by one day due to the arrival of the ministers. It was all over in one day, but Tarek Budal felt something was missing.

We do it again!

“The next day was my birthday. I was planning a weekend in Dubai with friends who live there. There is something that worries me. I don’t know what it is, but it bothers me. I look at the pictures. Again and again.

On Sunday morning, I decided that we should go back: I realized that the camera did not show the top of the building with me in any way – without this shot, the viewer does not know how high I am.“, he recalls in the film’s press conference.

Fortunately, Tarek Budali was able to shoot at Conrad Tower on Monday morning after the team spent the night installing from Sunday to Monday.

But the helicopter scene was not so easy. Only military helicopters were allowed in Abu Dhabi airspace. After the General Staff agreed, filming could be done with a military aircraft, a Black Hawk and a second shot.

Tarek Budali says:We start by doing two twenty-minute rounds. We had everything figured out, except for my shirt, which buttons like a cuff… They all fell off one by one while in the air.

By opening the shirt you could see the safety strap underneath… I tried my best to hold it closed with my hand, but on the way down, when I saw the return pictures, we barely had fifteen seconds to use. In short, we had to do everything from scratch.”

Tarek Budal was injured during filming

asked about his stunts Bruno Gillion at the microphone of RTLTarek Budal also confided that he was injured during filming. “On the set of this film, I cracked two ribs and cut my kneeHe admits.

I cracked two ribs and dislocated my knee

“At some point I have to buckle down and my character has to say, ‘Stop!’ Stop!”. I still have a code in case something goes wrong so they can stop the car, which is the word peanut. So I agreed with my whole team, “If you hear peanut, you stop everything.“, he explains.

Except that Tarek Budali forgot the famous safety word during the filming of the said scene. It follows: I kept saying Stop, and I see my teams looking at me. They said to themselves: “He plays very well!”

I don’t think I’ve ever played so well. But it squeezed me so much that I dislocated my knee. I shouted there and they understood that there was a problem.“

If, like Tom CruiseTarek Budal is never one to back down from a good trick, and this one doesn’t apply to his friend Philip Lachaux who told us in an interview that he prefers to use stuntmen whenever possible.

Philippe Lachaux and Julien Aruti impressed

“Tarek loves to do stunts. When I do them, it’s because I have no choice. When we’re doing the skydiving in Babysitting 2 or Nicky Larson, I force myself to do it because it’s for the movie. But when I have a choice, I call it. Gary or Vincent on the broth, and they do it much better than I do.“

in turn Julien Arrout said that he was amazed by Tarek’s work and his phlegmatism: “When he was doing the stunts, I got the impression that Philip and I were more stressed than him, it’s a bit scary. Plus, he does impressive things and manages to do it all while remaining cool. Be it the stunt, her acting and making the film, I was really nervous for her.”.

Maximum 3 days Must see in cinema.