Search - Le Petit Lieutenant on DVD

A fine police procedural that, half-way through, delivers an

C. O. DeRiemer | San Antonio, Texas, USA | 07/09/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

""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."