Customer Reviews

Le Petit Lieutenant

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This film, the sort of work Graham Greene without condescension called "an entertainment," is a fine achievement within the confines of its modern Parisian police story limits, confines it is intelligent enough not to transgress. However, it does happily push against these confines to the fullest allowable extent, becoming as a result not just a thrilling melodrama, but also a surprisingly affecting one.

At the outset, it spends a fairly liesurely time telling us about the home life of a new cop (Jalil Lespert) eager to make his mark and a veteran of the force who takes him under her wing, a recovering alcoholic and grieving mother (Natalie Baye) anxious to return to police work where she has in the past found some meaning in her otherwise troubled life. Both Lespert and Baye turn in wonderful performances, and they are ably abetted by a supporting cast which has not a single weak link. Further, when things go wrong for these central characters in the latter portion of the film, the liesurely setup has a great payoff; we care about their misfortunes to a greater extent than we would those of merely stereotypical police drama characters. All in all, this is a finely crafted melodrama without pretensions, and wholly enjoyable as just such.

Delve into the personal lives of an elite French police unit on the most intimate level.

There is murder and death and crimes to be solved. And all the troubling foibles and

flaws of human behavior on both sides of the law.

This is great character-driven story telling and exquisite filmmaking. It was nominated

for six Cesars including Best Picture. Nathalie Bay won for Best Actress.

Not knowing the plot in advance is a big plus. I was intensely involved. Don't miss it if

you are an adult with a refined sense of cinema at its best. This one will knock you out.

(3 1/2) While watching `Le Petit Lieutenant' I had to keep asking myself, `Why is this movie anything better than a US crime series?' Often watching foreign movies, I have to back up and say, 'How can I judge this movie?' After all, there is a temptation to give a French movie an unfair advantage or to demote its value based on American standard or yardstick. Either way is an insult to everyone. Comparing, `Le Petit Lieutenant' to `Law and Order,' a fine American crime series, yielded some results. While the developments and investigations in the movie remind one of any crime series, some elements definitely put this movie ahead. The authenticity of the characters seems even more vivid and real. Especially the dialogue reveals a good deal about the nature of France's police force and more than a self-examination of French culture.

The movie begins with the graduation of the titled character, Antoine Deroue're (Jalil Lespert) from the police academy. He's already an elite member of the force, a lieutenant, but still a new fish in the pond. He's left his school teacher wife behind in Le Havre to pursue his career in Paris. His new supervisor, Caroline Vaudieu (Nathalle Baye), is a sort of "super cop" from a "family of super cops". Newly reinstated, she is greeted enthusiastically as she returns after two years of complications only hinted at as a recovering alcoholic. His new division comes across with great authenticity. His initiation includes the escapades of his colleagues and their conversations are full of sentiments about their work, specifically, and about France in general. Included are unvarnished prejudices of foreigners; something that sets up the main plot well. In one conversation, one officer after a few beers offers eloquently: "Paris now sucks." In the discourse they decide the turning point was 1995. One of the brightest lights of the force is a colleague of Moroccan decent who shares that it took him years before he was accepted as one of group. During the engaging prologue, we see the run-of-the-mill development of Antoine develop until early on when he runs into a rare case of real import: A Polish man, seemingly homeless, is dragged up from the Seine River and revealed to have been cruelly murdered.

`Le Petit Lieutenant' works well because the dialogue is excellent, the action feels real, and the complications and setbacks develop naturally. In one of the scenes, I was truly moved by the unexpected. A development took a while for the characters to get over as well as for me as I watched. There is also effective humor. In one scene, Antoine and his supervisor are smoking marijuana in a park. A nightfly comes by to mooch a drag from their joint. Parting, he warns them, "Watch out. This place is crawling with cops."

In the end, that's how 'Le Petit Lieutenant' is distinctive. The details show some of the futility of a young, dedicated man in emotional times with absorbing characters and the repercussions of their lives.

"There was the liver, the lungs, the heart, all set out on the table like a butcher's display box," says new police lieutenant Antoine Derouere (Jalil Lespert). "This'll sound stupid but I thought of Mozart. I thought, 'How can that stuff compose music like that?'" Derouere is newly graduated from the police academy in his home town of Le Havre. He gets his first choice of an assignment, a plain-clothes homicide unit in Paris. He's ambitious and eager to get involved with real crime solving, and what better place than Paris. His wife is not thrilled. She stays in Le Havre and he goes to Paris, rents a room and meets the men in his unit. There's Captain Berrada, always called Solo, Lieutenant Nicolas Morbe, Lieutenant Patrick Belval and Officer Louis Mallet. The unit is headed by Commandant Caroline Vaudier (Nathalie Baye), who has the reputation of one of the top cops in Paris. She's in her fifties, an alcoholic who sits through Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, hasn't had a drink in two years, still mourns her son who died at 7 of meningitis. She begins to take an interest in this eager young cop. The interest isn't romantic; Derouere is as old as her son would have been had he lived.

The autopsy Derouere observed was his first, and it was on a tramp who had been beaten to death and left on the Seine embankment. It was the same tramp, drunk to incoherence, who'd been picked up on the street two days earlier and tossed into a cell for the night. Soon after, the team is called on to investigate the stabbing of an old man who had been robbed and thrown in the Seine. Now Vaudier mobilizes her team to try to identify the assailants, track them down and bring them in. All they have to go on is that the two might be Russian, one with the name of Piotr, who probably have no papers. They might have spent two or three days picking grapes. We're off on a fascinating police procedural that takes us in and out of Paris and let's us look at how, bit by bit, Vaudier and her team put the pieces together while she tries to keep her own demons at bay. Just as importantly, we see how her team works. We get to know these men, how they spend their time, the dull routines of their work, the plodding nature of checking out statements. We see just how tight a unit they are, and that means we get to see how they accept Derouere and how he fits in. He's the "petit" lieutenant, the new guy with no experience, and we watch while he gains experience.

As a police procedural, Le Petit Lieutenant works just fine. Part of the reason is that most Americans will know none of the actors except possibly Baye, and her not well. There's no distraction from seeing Hollywood faces from other parts. Part of the reason is that there isn't a single too-handsome face in the crowd. Baye is a good-looking woman who, at 57 and like Helen Mirren, doesn't have to rely on her looks to make us want to watch her. None of the cops would win a beauty contest. Even Lespert, a reasonably handsome man, is not someone you'd gawk over. If this had been a Hollywood film the producers would probably have cast Michelle Pfeiffer as Vaudier and Ryan Phillippe as Derouere. This police procedural is not only well acted, it looks real.

Then something happens half-way through the movie that is so unexpected it's almost shocking. If the first half of the movie was a fascinating step-by-step look at catching a couple of violent murderers, the second half takes the brakes off. The emotional content of the movie pushes straight up. It never gets teary, but there is a genuine wallop. If you're not familiar with the work of that fine actress, Nathalie Baye, this is a good movie to start with.

The DVD transfer is good but nothing special. There are a couple of inconsequential extras.

Jane Tennyson (Helen Mirren in the PBS series, "Prime Suspect") and Caroline Vaudieu (a thoughtful, sad, tragic Nathalie Baye in this film): the comparisons are inevitable. Both are Chief Inspectors in charge of an all man team of detectives, both have problematic personal lives and both suffer from alcoholism.
But whereas Tennyson is like a feral cat, ready to pounce, full of rage, Vaudieu, though equally as competent as Tennyson, is laid-back, thoughtful and able to lead a group of hardened, seen-it-all detectives with her keen sense of propriety, her innate humanity and well-honed ability of always doing the right thing professionally. Vaudieu leads by example; she never falters. On the surface Baye's Vaudieu is in control but beneath that façade she is psychically falling apart: the sobriety she so desperately fought for is weakened every minute of every day by loneliness and thoughts of her recently deceased son.
On the day that she returns to work after a leave, a new recruit, the "petit lieutenant," Antoine Derouere (a naive and personable Jalil Lespert of Laurent Cantet's "Human Resources") arrives having just finished at the police academy. He is assigned to be part of Vaudieu's group.
In most films of this ilk, Vaudieu would eventually and naturally fall into bed with Derouere (his wife decides not to come with him to Paris from Normandy, so he is alone). But not so here: their relationship is refreshingly professional yet they grow to like and respect each other.
Director/Writer Xavier Beauvois directs with in an extremely understated manner: many scenes seem improvised and many of the actors are so natural that they seem like non-professionals. But Beauvois is after something else here than we usually find in a policier particularly if you compare "Le Petit Lieutenant" to the recent "Miami Vice" or even Michael Mann's "Heat." Beauvois's film is natural, organic, and almost documentary-like: the good guys are as flawed as the bad. The line between good and bad, love and hate is blurred, smudged as it is in Life.
In his quest for authenticity, Beauvois may give us too much detail: the checking and re-checking of facts and case leads, the repeated stake-outs, the interrogation of the same witnesses over and over. But this is a small gripe for what Beauvois has accomplished here is to raise the bar on police dramas. There are no exploding cars, hardly any car chases. The drama in "Le Petit Lieutenant" is the drama derived from lives well observed, of lives perpetually in danger and on the edge and the thoughtful and distinctive manner in which Beauvois cohesively manipulates these factors.

Director Xavier Beauvois, with the intelligent and sensitive script he co-wrote with Cédric Anger, Guillaume Bréaud and Jean-Eric Troubat, allows us, the viewers, to look inside the minds and lives of those people who commit to police work in a manner that pays homage to a maligned group and reinstates our visceral support to the spectrum of on the edge terror mixed with spaces of ennui that these people endure. LA PETIT LIEUTENANT is not a crime film: it is a deeply touching inside view of the men and women who protect us.

Opening with well-staged Le Havre Police Academy graduation images Beauvois focuses on newly graduated Antoine Derouère (Jalil Lespert) as he says goodbye to his family and his wife Julie (Bérangère Allaux), a school teacher who pleads with Antoine not to leave Le Havre for Paris, the destination Antoine seeks to prove his desire for an active detective career. The kind but inexperienced Antoine takes up residence in Paris and is assigned to a homicide unit with equally inexperienced young men who learn the ropes of owning a gun, the embarrassment of performance problems at the shooting range, the awkward first 'arrests' and interrogations, and the endless hours of sitting at a desk waiting for activity. Newly assigned as the head of Antoine's unit is Commandant Caroline Vaudieu (the extraordinary actress Nathalie Baye) who has just come off a two year sabbatical to recover from alcoholism and the associated death of her son from meningitis. The manner in which these people bond is quiet and sensitive and when finally a case comes to their attention - a man found dead in the canal - the force joins begins what they all need to do: the killer must be found.

Clues are explored, people are traced, and Antoine and Vandieu form a particularly close bond, Antoine reminding Vandieu of the son she has lost and Vandieu providing the model for his career. Tension mounts as the criminals are pursued, coincidences occur and a tragedy cracks the bond of the group, affecting each member of the small force immeasurably. It is this very human happening and its effects that wind the movie down to moments of painful acceptance of the life of police people.

The entire cast is first rate and provides ensemble acting that is among the finest on screen. But the portrayal by Nathalie Baye is so multifaceted, embracing the inner trauma of personal losses not only of those she loves but also of her own sense of dignity as she faithfully attends AA meetings, that her performance is triumphant. Jalil Lespert also captures the fine line between innocence and experience that makes his portrait of a new detective not only completely credible but also one that leaves a mark on the heart. The direction and the cinematography by Caroline Champetier keep the film nearly monochromatic, the only color that is left to shock us for a brief moment is the red blood at moments of tension. And the lack of a musical score keeps the tone of the humanity of the film intact, never reducing it to a bombastic Hollywood chase and kill film. This is a little jewel of a film that deserves a very wide audience. Highly Recommended. In French, Polish, and Russian with English subtitles. Grady Harp, April 07

"Le Petit Lieutenant" concentrates first on immersing us in the dailiness of Antoine's life as the new guy at the Paris station, trying to fit in. We go with him as he's assigned his weapon and rents a single-guy room to live in. And we meet the other people in his unit, in effect his family away from home." Kenneth Turan

AO Scott in his NYT review of this film likens it to HBO's 'The Wire' in its truth and detail of the life of a young lieutenant in the Parisian plain clothes detective unit. In this film the police eat, drink, arrest the perps, follow leads and look for the big case that will make them famous.

Le Petite Lieutenant, Antoine, played by Jalil Lespert, is from a small town, and after he graduates from the academy he wants to work in the big time, Paris. He is assigned to the detective plain clothes detail. At about the same time, Caroline Vaudieu, played by Nathalie Bayes,returns to work after 'drying out and becoming sober'. She returns as the head of the criminal unit. She is welcomed back by the team and as the film unfolds we learn more about her and her life. What we do learn right away is that she is a tough,intelligent boss and she takes the new Lieutenant under her wing. One of their first cases is a dead body that washes up on the shore. This seems like a run-of-the-mill case until something unfolds that is so shocking that every one's life is changed. This is a film that deals with life and death, and it gives us a real sense of what it is like to work with this Paris detective group.

We get to know all of the people who become Antoine's friends. The members of this detective unit, the wife he has left behind because she did not want to move to the new city, the families of the detectives and how they run their lives. We eat dinner with them and follow their conversations. We meet Antoine's new landlady who lets out rooms to the single police. We learn how the unit works, the drunk tank, how to run a case and how each member of the unit thinks.

"Nominated for six Césars, including best picture and deservedly winning best actress for the great veteran Nathalie Baye, "Le Petit "Lieutenant" is successful on two parallel levels. But, always lurking behind the tedium is the sense of impending danger, the idea that it's in the nature of police work that things could explode at any moment. With its exceptional restraint and psychological complexity paying full dividends, "Le Petit Lieutenant" makes that contrast and its consequences unforgettable. " Kenneth Turan

This is a film that deals with life and death, and it gives us a real sense of what it is like to work with this Paris detective group. I find it a stimulating but laid back look at crime and the consequences.

Highly Recommended. prisrob 05-06-08

Jane Tennyson (Helen Mirren in the PBS series, "Prime Suspect") and Caroline Vaudieu (a thoughtful, sad, tragic Nathalie Baye in this film): the comparisons are inevitable. Both are Chief Inspectors in charge of an all man team of detectives, both have problematic personal lives and both suffer from alcoholism.
But whereas Tennyson is like a feral cat, ready to pounce, full of rage, Vaudieu, though equally as competent as Tennyson, is laid-back, thoughtful and able to lead a group of hardened, seen-it-all detectives with her keen sense of propriety, her innate humanity and well-honed ability of always doing the right thing professionally. Vaudieu leads by example; she never falters. On the surface Baye's Vaudieu is in control but beneath that façade she is psychically falling apart: the sobriety she so desperately fought for is weakened every minute of every day by loneliness and thoughts of her deceased son.
On the day that she returns to work after a leave, a new recruit, the "petit lieutenant," Antoine Derouere (a naive and personable Jalil Lespert of Laurent Cantet's "Human Resources") arrives having just finished at the police academy. He is assigned to be part of Vaudieu's group.
In most films of this ilk, Vaudieu would eventually and naturally fall into bed with Derouere (his wife decides not to come with him to Paris from Normandy, so he is alone). But not so here: their relationship is refreshingly professional yet they grow to like and respect each other.
Director/Writer Xavier Beauvois directs with in an extremely understated manner: many scenes seem improvised and many of the actors are so natural that they seem like non-professionals. But Beauvois is after something else here than we usually find in a policier particularly if you compare "Le Petit Lieutenant" to the recent "Miami Vice" or even Michael Mann's "Heat." Beauvois's film is natural, organic, and almost documentary-like: the good guys are as flawed as the bad. The line between good and bad, love and hate is blurred, smudged as it is in Life.
In his quest for authenticity, Beauvois may give us too much detail: the checking and re-checking of facts and case leads, the repeated stake-outs, the interrogation of the same witnesses over and over. But this is a small gripe for what Beauvois has accomplished here is to raise the bar on police dramas. There are no exploding cars, hardly any car chases. The drama in "Le Petit Lieutenant" is the drama derived from lives well observed, of lives perpetually in danger and on the edge and the thoughtful and distinctive manner in which Beauvois cohesively manipulates these factors.

This is a slow, slow movie what takes 3/4 of its length to build a case for its explosive conclusion. We see police station in one of the Paris districts that deals with typical big city crimes: drugs, rapes, murders. In the course of the film we learn that cops involved with these crimes are not immune to them either. They have problems of their own and that leads them to drinking, slacking and even marijuana smoking on occasions. As the female chief in charge of this group deals with her own demons upon return to her duties from her 2 year sabbatical, she bonds with the young rookie cop who has transferred from suburbs to the city in search of the excitement of the real police work. As his thrill turn tragic within the first month of his new job, his new boss dedicates her energy to finding and punishing criminals responsible for his downfall.

Le Petit Lieutenant makes Eastern Promises (subject of my last review) look like the mediocre knock off it is. In spite of an excellent performance from Viggo, and a couple of signature scenes, it has nothing substantial to offer, and is ultimately forgetable after the echo of its posturing and violence subside (can't really understand why the critics adore Cronenberg so much). It is no more evident than when I compare his film to another that works so much better, like le Petit Lieutenant.

Both are dramas that operate fully within the "crime genre," but whereas there is very little that is original or compelling beyond the dramatic pretense of Eastern Promises, the French film is rich with characterizations and direction that lend depth to its realistic story. Whereas "Eastern..." creates slick, hip hollywood scenes that tease and gratify our primal senses without really engaging any of its real dilemmas, "Petit..." draws us in (via a casual documentary like style) to the life of a young detective just out of cadet school who is becoming familiar with his co-workers and line of work on the streets of Paris. It is through him and his interactions with everything around him that we begin to experience something more dramatic, almost without realizing it, until the tragedy of common (rather than postured) occurrence invades our psyche, and plays out amidst a suspense created by the tension of anxiety, anguish, and inner strength of his chief inspector (a woman), portrayed with great humanity by Nathalie Baye.

Like all Hollywood movies, Eastern Promises offers the semblance of real drama at the beginning, only to abandon its stories and characters as it lapses into the improbability and titillation we have all grown accustomed to at the cinema. The french film, on the other hand, demonstrates its concern for the people it has given life to by engaging our own humanity rather than our anticipation of the next thrill that lies around the corner....

your cinewest correspondent