The Young Lieutenant (2005)

Beautiful, moving film.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

"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 accept 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 other day me and my friend cam out of the cinema. We had just seen VOLVER by Almodovar, and my friend made a very astute observation. She said: "In the beginning I had difficulties to get into this film. It is so uncommon to watch a film where there are so few cuts within the first ten minutes. Nowadays, when I go to the movies, I expect a car to be blown up or a man to be killed or an army to be set in motion within the first scenes". Le petit lieutenant had the same impact on me. Before seeing it, I thought: O.K., this is a cop film, a whodunit maybe, with a well conceived plot and lots of tension. Fortunately, I was mistaken. This film doesn't rush us into violent crime scenes and bold snide remarks by worn out and disillusioned cops. Instead it gives us an accurate account of everyday police work and it tells us how boring and dull police work can be. Due to these scenes of boredom the sequences where there is some real violence have a bigger impact on the viewer. Anyway, I just want to say, that I was completely thrilled by the realism of this film and I am staring to prefer European cinema to American cinema.

Of the check french cinema - a realism rarely seen in the cinema and a magnificent composition in particular Nathalie BAYE. The reality of the young provincial cop arriving in capital is striking of truth. We suffer from these stabs and we curse this youth which take this young cop towards his loss. That feels(smells) the INNKEEPER in L627... He(it) is striking of the truth considers. Bravo to the director and has his comedians. To see to understand(include) cop's realité!!! The motivations of this young policeman make can be dumped but very often have entrainé the vocation has numerous policemen.. Quotation blasé person of these colleagues experimented are just(right) and nevertheless law of caricatures usually conveyed. The Arabic cop who malgrè its speech in the meal of integrated policeman does not ring as the truth and the proof made it when he pushes aside(knocks down) l former(ancient) who treats him as Bicot towards the end of the film, denoting that everything is far from being a pink and this film evite this kind(genre) of cliché(picture) with correctness. The final silence Or we have l impression(printing) that Nathalie Baye wishes to speak to us is just bluffing has new. Anything n left at random and has to wonder how the realizer was so well able to make apparaitre the threads of this inequitable and thankless job.. The sink of The Seine linked with the grey of this history which never sinks into the every white or every Black

I saw the movie being a French police officer. Usually I don't like movies about French police for they are mostly very unrealistic.There however we have a story about what could be a regular case in one of the most important Crime Units in the city of Paris. With regular police work done by regular police detectives. The actors are playing in a such realistic manner that they just could be real cops caught in their everyday work.The movie is sad, very sad and hard. I don't think you would apply to become a police officer after seeing it ...