Polisse (2011)

Polisse is the biggest pile of contrived nonsense since Paul Haggis's Crash. So Actress/Director/Researcher/Egotist Maïwenn spent nearly a year with Paris's Child Protection Unit, following the Officers in their daily routines both at work and at play. She is successful in showing some of the horrific issues they have to deal with, the sad and heartbreaking tales they have to tell and how this effects and can ultimately destroy their own lives and the way they interact with people on a social level. Some of the scenes are heartbreakingly real and others are unashamedly graphic. The viewer is not stupid, we get it, this film often goes too far just for the sake of it - when the story isn't making much sense director Maïwenn shoves something else unpleasant down your throat to make up for it. The direction and story are badly handled, the DVD cover says 'Like a season of The Wire packed into just one film' which I'm not sure was intended to be a compliment when quoted. The Paedophiles are cliched and two dimensional, you can see them coming a mile off. The way the Child Protection Unit is portrayed is shockingly offensive. The Officers are shown to be a rowdy bunch of rude, unorganised, arrogant and heavy drinking hooligans with a total lack of self control, wannabe pseudo-intellectuals at best. If she's trying to point out that it is a department that isn't working there are other ways to go about it but I don't think she is. In the last scene they talk about opening a 'Internet Paedophile' department, like that's a new thing in 2011. She belittles these people she has supposedly studied and makes a mockery of them and their work. The fact she just had to give herself a pointless starring role in the film just goes to show you how much she really cares about the subject and the real people involved. Offensive and contrived, all to forward her own career, isn't banging Luc Besson enough? One star for the Child actors who were great.