“Good villains make good thrillers,” the Master of Suspense taught us. And nobody loved Alfred Hitchcock or took his lessons to heart like the French.

“Carjackers” has a doozy of a bad guy. And we know actor Franck Gastambide‘s status in staff-robs-rich-hotel-guests-on-the-road thriller because he plays the figure we meet first.

Gastambide, who was in the recent French remake of “The Wages of Fear,” plays Elias. And we meet him at a casino where he pulls a seemingly-well-heeled older player into a back room to do what “we do to pickpockets.” As it turns out Elias isn’t a cop, imagine the worst.

He’s a private security investigator, enforcer and punisher. So naturally he’s the guy a swank seaside hotel calls when it looks as if somebody’s targeting their rich guests for carjackings as they leave the property.

Nora, Steve, Zoé and Pres (Zoé Marchal, Bosh, Chilla and Alassane Diong) are a parking valet, bellman, concierge and bartender, respectively at their exclusive hotel. But it’s their side hustle, selecting a mark and carrying out an armed robbery on a freeway so busy nobody stops to intervene that is their retirement plan.

Concierge Zoé selects likely candidates from the various guests’ names and profiles. Steve pokes around the in-room safe to confirm how loaded they are. Barman Pres notes their choice of liquor and tips. But Nora (Marchal, of “All Time High”) is the driving force behind this operation. She’s the one who takes the wheel of the Golf GTI that they run down Audis, Merc limo vans and Maybachs, with Steve on the motorbike shooting out the tires.

They don’t do this often, generally one heist/one hotel a season. And they’re aiming for that “one last job” that will be the big score that will set them up for the sweet life.

But these have-nots stealing from the haves haven’t counting on Hotel Oligarch calling in Elias.

“I want the files of your staff, your guests and all the people you’re bribing,” he barks (in French with subtitles, or dubbed into English). And that latest victim, a rapist diamond merchant from Amsterdam, wants “proof” that this quartet has been stopped. He’s paying extra to see to it that the furious woman driver who tased his testicules is dead.

The plot is simple enough, variations on that staff-stealing-from-targeted guests thing we’ve seen in other films such as the more sinister and political German thriller “Delicious.” There isn’t any “rob from the rich, give to the poor” subtext here. “Carjackers” is all text, no subtext.

Complications include the all-business Nora letting the new hotel piano player (Disiz) distract her and letting her emotions — a fellow staffer was sexually assaulted by the Dutch diamond dealer — drive her actions.

Her accomplices are treated like background decor, and the picture’s shift from heists to being hunted and facing repercussions dominates the third act and ups the stakes in the most simplistic and sadistic ways.

But director and co-writer Kamel Guemra (he co-wrote the sizzling “Lost Bullet”) keeps the picture more or less on task between crackling action beats, and stunt driving coordinator Jean-Claude Lagniez reminds us that the French still have the edge in serving up riveting car chases.

And Gastambide makes us fear the worst when he catches up with people who, you have to admit, kind of having it coming.

It isn’t “Bullitt” or “The French Connection,” but “Carjackers” delivers on the promise of its simple premise and its simple title. But maybe I’m prejudiced because I love Golf GTIs.

Rating: 16+, graphic violence, sex, profanity

Cast: Zoé Marchal, Franck Gastambide, Bosh, Chilla, Alassane Diong and
Disiz.

Credits: Directed by Kamel Guemra, scripted by Morade Aissaoui, Sledge Bidounga and Kamel Guemra. An MGM release on Amazon Prime.

Running time: 1:37