How “woke,” exactly, was “Batgirl”? Warner Brothers last year, you might recall, pulled the rug out from under the film, declaring it “unreleasable.” Apparently, the picture played fast and loose with notions of racial representation as well as the superheroine’s origin story. Notwithstanding a sizable investment — reports have it costing anywhere between $90 million and $140 million — the picture was deemed a threat to the DC Comics brand. The finished product is now squirreled away in the studio vaults, presumably never to be seen again.

Most observers chalked up the kerfuffle to a cultural elite wanting to save its collective behind, and left the matter at that. But “Rebel,” a picture co-produced through the offices of Belgium, Luxembourg, and France, does pique one’s curiosity about “Batgirl” because the two men who helmed it, Adel El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, have now given us a picture about Islamism, indoctrination, and the bonds of family. “Rebel” makes one wonder if what scared the suits at Warner Brothers was that its directors proved too sui generis.

Lest you think that Messrs. Arbi and Fallah are removed from the mainstream, they’ve gone ahead and established mass-market credibility by directing “Bad Boys for Life” (2020), the third in a series of action-comedies starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. That effort raked in a cool $426 million and Messrs. Arbi and Fallah have signed on to direct the fourth film in the franchise. In the meantime, they’ve brought us an anti-radicalization action movie.

“Rebel” is, according to the auteurs, “our most personal film.” Messrs. Arbi and Fallah are Belgians of Moroccan descent and speak of experiencing a cultural disconnect growing up as strangers in, if not a strange land necessarily, then a land in which one can be set apart. “OK, so we’re Moroccan, Muslim, that’s our tribe … [but] you are also in part the product of your environment, the territory on which you grew up.” The new film focuses on the pull — inevitable, trying and potentially disastrous — of shaping one’s identity.

“Rebel” centers on Kamal Wasaki (Aboubakr Bensaihi), a 20-something Belgian of Moroccan descent who aspires to be a rapper. He lives in the neighborhood of Molenbeek with his mother, Leila (a tough-as-nails Lubna Azabal), and a 13-year-old brother, Nassim (Mr. Arbi’s younger sibling, Amir). After Kamal runs afoul of the police, it’s discovered that he’s been harboring a sizable cache of drugs. The ever proud Leila, after declaring her motherly love, boots him out of the house.

Seeking to do right, Kamal travels to Syria to help with relief efforts during the course of that country’s civil war. Messrs. Arbi and Fallah, with the indispensable help of cinematographer Robrecht Heyvaert, are brilliant in capturing the arbitrariness, the chaos and surprise, of a besieged populace. “Rebel” is, at these moments, thrillingly visceral. This is especially true of the series of events that leads to Kamal being “volunteered” into becoming a member of ISIS. Desperate decisions are made, few of them happy.

Kamal’s life is further complicated when he’s gifted a bride at an ISIS slave market, and later has to engage in drastic measures to prove his fealty to the organization. When news footage of Kamal’s activities with the Islamic State reaches Belgium, Leila is bereft. Nassim is shunned by his schoolmates and left at sea with his emotions. When he’s befriended by Idriss (Fouad Hajji), a local tough who is also an ISIS recruiter, Nassim can’t help but respond positively to his overtures.

The filmmakers navigate a treacherous pathway between documentary verisimilitude and the conventions of an action blockbuster, between exploiting contemporary events and plumbing their depths. They do so with consummate skill, and if the picture is often hyperbolic in its turns, Messrs. Adil and Fallah keep a firm hand on the foundations. 

Even when the picture segues into a handful of extravagantly choreographed musical numbers, the stylistic anachronisms are of a piece with the tumultuous emotions at its core. “Rebel” is rebellious in more ways than one, and a supercharged entertainment.