Not to be confused with the musical, the title is a reference to the original Victor Hugo book, written in Montfermeil, where most of the story is set. I found out about this French film first when it was reviewed by Mark Kermode on the BBC News, and secondly it became part of Awards Season, so I was interested to see what it had to offer. Basically, it opens in Paris during the celebrations of the victory of the French team at the 2018 FIFA World Cup in the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. Soon after, police officer Stéphane Ruiz (Damien Bonnard) has moved from Paris to join the anti-crime brigade, he is assigned to work with squad leader Chris (Alexis Manenti) and brigadier Gwada (Djebril Zonga) on duty in the nearby city of Montfermeil. Chris is often aggressive and abuses his power on teenagers, with Gwada contented with it, Stéphane feels uneasy but cannot bring himself to interfere. Meanwhile, juvenile delinquent Issa (Issa Perica) steals a lion cub named Johnny from a circus, causing its owner Zorro (Raymond Lopez) to go to a man known as "the Mayor" (Steve Tientcheu) and threaten to return with firearms if Johnny is not returned. Chris and his squadron are tasked with finding and retrieving the cub. One of Issa's friends takes a picture of Issa with the cub and posts it on Instagram, leading Chris to find out that Issa is the culprit. They chase, capture and handcuff him, but he claims that the cub had run away. Issa's friends then attack the three officers, throwing things at them. When Issa tries to flee, Gwada, who accidentally teargassed himself during the chase, shoots him in the face with a flash-ball. Issa's friends scatter, but the squadron realise that they have been filmed by a drone, which escapes. While Stéphane wants to take a wounded Issa to a hospital, Chris and Gwada refuse, and instead they take him with them in their search for the owner of the drone. The trio leave Issa in the care a local neighbourhood contact of Chris and use the contact's information to find Buzz (Al-Hassan Ly), the teenager the drone belongs to, forcing him to flee before he can upload the video. Buzz takes the drone's memory card and escapes the squadron, taking shelter with restaurant owner Salah (Almamy Kanouté), who is key member of the local Islamic community. Both the squadron and the Mayor, having found out, arrive at Salah's restaurant. After a tense confrontation during which Chris tries to illegally arrest Buzz, Ruiz convinces Salah to give him the memory card, claiming that Issa's shooting was just accidental. After recovering Issa and the cub, which was spotted near them, the squadron takes the two to the circus. Although Issa is made to apologise, Zorro drags him inside a cage with a fully grown lion, scaring Issa into wetting himself. Stéphane almost shoots the lion, until Issa is eventually let go. Deciding that Issa has learned his lesson, Chris drops him off and warns him not to tell anyone what happened, and, if asked about his injury, to say that he slipped and fell. In the evening, the characters return to their seemingly normal lives, some with visible signs of distress and doubt. Issa, who had been told by his father not to return because of his behaviour, sits traumatised alone on a ruined couch. Later that night, Ruiz meets Gwada in a bar and tells him that he knows that a flash-ball cannot be fired by accident, and that Gwada had therefore intentionally shot Issa. Gwada blames being overwhelmed by stress, and Stéphane, while unconvinced, leaves Gwada with telling him to "do what you gotta do". The next day, the squadron, while on patrol, get attacked by a small group led by Issa. They chase them, falling into Issa's trap and ending up assaulted by a much larger group of teenagers, leaving them trapped from all sides in a stairwell and fighting for their lives. Chris is wounded, and the backup car gets immediately destroyed by the teenagers, forcing the backup policemen to flee. They also attack the Mayor's office and end up clubbing him and throwing him down a set of stairs. Stéphane begs for help, pounding on the nearest door, which happens to be Buzz's apartment, but Buzz locks the door. Issa lights an improvised alcohol bomb and prepares to finish the squadron off, leading Stéphane to point his gun at him and warn him not to. The screen fades to black as both Issa and Stéphane try to decide what to do next, and a quote from Victor Hugo's Les Misérables appears: "Remember this, my friends: there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators." Also starring Nizar Ben Fatma as La Pince (The Clamp) and Jeanne Balibar as The Commissioner. I see the critics comparing it to films like Do the Right Thing and Training Day, the themes of bigotry, poverty and indifference are very prominent, there are some memorable moments that get your attention, especially the unjustified violent, and unorthodox and unlawful police activity, it is an interesting drama. It was nominated the Oscar for Best International Feature Film, it was nominated the BAFTA for Best Film Not in the English Language, and it was nominated the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Foreign Language. Good!
Review of Les Misérables
