646f9e108c A cop goes up against his lifelong friend, who has become one of the city's biggest drug traffickers. After a bunch of seriously dark French thrillers directed by Olivier Marchal (36, MR73, Les Lyonnais, the TV series Braquo), I was keen to see Marchal and Depardieu reunited. Well, it just doesn't work this time: Olivier is clearly better behind the camera and Gerard behind a bar counter. The tempo is pretty random, cops and villains seem to make appointments to fight each other or walk casually in the most obvious traps. The scenario is weak as American coffee; who would believe that 280-pound pure fat Gerard can take on trained killers or that a burning car on a 20 meters wide pier would stop a death squad… Avoid, and if you missed 36 or Braquo go for those instead! On a slightly different note, add 'A la petite semaine' to your watch list for good measure. Since several years now, we can assist at the new birth of the french crime film industry. Thanks to guys like Olivier Marchall. And he is one of the characters of this dark tale of cops in perdition, in total distress. Cops who have to affront corrupted politicians, police force executives and gangsters. A world where everything they approach can be a trap. A death trap. A world with no place for redemption. No hope. A daily fight for surviving.<br/><br/>Depardieu is quite good in this film, but not at his best ever. Marchall is as sharp as usual. So terrific. And touching too.<br/><br/>This story is an effective adaptation of a Hugues Pagan novel. Pagan is an ex cop who quited the force, totally wiped out from the inside, destroyed by all the filthiness, trashy things he had to live with. So Marshall - an ex cop too - come from the same world, the same nasty life. The darkest side of the human kind.<br/><br/>The film is worthwhile, but not for the sissies.<br/><br/>And I am very pleased that the director - Gilles Behat - is back after so many years of retirement from the movie industry to the TV one.
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