The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part
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Critics Consensus: A gritty, languidly paced crime drama that blends old-fashioned ambiance with modern cynicism.
Critic Consensus: A gritty, languidly paced crime drama that blends old-fashioned ambiance with modern cynicism.
All Critics (55) | Top Critics (26) | Fresh (43) | Rotten (12) | DVD (3)
A quiet powerhouse of a film, an implacable, uncompromising French police drama, both old-fashioned and modern, that underlines the reasons impeccably made crime stories do so well on-screen.
Le Petit Lieutenant shows how good French movies can be when they stay French and don't try to go international.
... you can sense Baye's struggling within the limits imposed on her.
The film's plot, revolving around a murder investigation that turns nasty, ticks along smoothly and efficiently. But it's ultimately more of a character drama, and a reminder that great acting often has little to do with words.
Le Petit Lieutenant looks at Antoine's life with lyricism.
Beauvois makes the milieu his own, too, showing us credible and affecting human beings caught up in a world that often reveals humanity at its worst.
The rarely done genre of the French policier is alive and well in director Xavier Beauvois' dynamic movie
French version of upscale cop shows like NYPD Blue or The Wire.
Lieutenant is a sly act of provocation, a repudiation of American filmmaking technique and of near-universal attitudes about cinematic violence.
Gives the audience a strong sense that you're watching how things really go down in a police station... only without all the action and excitement of a TV cop show.
To cut to the chase...this is a very French, understated, intelligent, slow, police procedural that ultimately engrosses and then surprises the viewer. If you don't see it in a theater, it would be a great rental.
As a portrayal of the angst that permeates most police work...certainly a success. As drama, however, it's far from riveting.
Strikingly real French cop drama. Beauvois simply goes about telling his story and developing his characters with no Hollywood "tricks". Thankfully, the story is damn good and the characters are intriguing, which makes the events that unfold all the more powerful.
Super Reviewer
It's March! :fresh: [img]http://homeroom.pnca.edu/docs/inline/1695[/img]
[font=Century Gothic]"Le Petit Lieutenant" starts out with Antoine Derouere(Jalil Lespert) graduating from the police academy and chooses as his first assignment the detective squad in Paris, much to the consternation of his young wife, who does not want to leave her teaching job in Le Havre. In Paris, Antoine is assigned to the Crime Unit under Commander Caroline Vaudieu(Nathalie Baye), a recovering alcoholic, two years sober, and only now returning to active duty. Things settle into a routine after a while for Antoine until a body turns up in the canal who turns out to be a drunk Antoine helped process a short time before.[/font] [font=Century Gothic][/font] [font=Century Gothic]"Le Petit Lieutenant" is an absorbing police procedural that is more interested in character than in mystery.(It also explores the themes of prisons and racism.) This is a subdued movie that is layered in details about people going about their jobs on a daily basis.(While the policemen in this film may worship the violence of American films, the reality is most often quite different.) It avoids expectations throughout and only during one critical sequence does it telegraph its punches.[/font]
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