Dorathen Better Late Then Never

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Calum Hutton It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Tobias Burrows It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

jotix100 Antoine, a young lieutenant, fresh from the police academy, wants to be assigned to the Paris police force. He feels that by staying in Le Havre he will be missing his call, which is to be in an exciting environment where his talent will matter and he will be appreciated by his peers and superiors. Antoine gets his wish by getting place in the homicide division where there is always some unexpected thing happening. As Antoine is about to begin his career in Paris, a new police supervisor, Caroline Vaudieu, returns to take command of this unit. She had been away from active duty for a while. In welcoming her back the head of the department congratulates her on being sober for quite some time now. Caroline is battling her own demons in her tragic life because of the death of her son, years ago. In fact, she remarks her late child could have been the same age as Antoine,had he still been among the living. The death of a homeless person under strange circumstances brings the homicide unit into action. Everything points out to a duo of undocumented Russian immigrants who manage to elude the police investigation trying to capture them. Antoine, who gets the assignment, together with his partner, Morbe, to go after one of the pair who has been hiding in a hostel, makes a tactical error by going alone to the criminal's room, something that ends with fatal consequences. Caroline is devastated by what happened to her young subordinate, vowing to get the criminal, no matter what.A great "policier" directed with sure hand by Xavier Beauvois, who also collaborated in the screenplay, as well as portrayed Morbe, a man whose mistake proves to be the cause the end of a young man's police career. The police work is examined with accurate detail by the director who keeps things moving, getting his audience immersed in the story. One realizes not all the police work is non stop action.we watch the men for what they are, comrades in arms working to protect the citizens of their area. It also presents a human soul suffering, as is the case of Caroline, a woman whose life has known great suffering in her life and her struggle to keep away from drinking herself into oblivion.Nathalie Baye makes an excellent, and complex, Caroline. One can sense her pain. She is mourning for a loss that was a terrible blow for a mother. Her becoming an alcoholic ruins her career until she decides to get over her self pity, returning to a job in which she excels. Ms Baye is seen experiencing emotions that one can identify with. Jalil Lespert's new police lieutenant credible. He is perfectly eager doing a job he always dreamed about. Roschy Zem keeps getting better all the time,as he shows here. Jacques Perrin has a small, but effective role as Caroline's old lover. The excellent supporting cast is a joy to watch in an ensemble effort.

jim-314 This movie starts out looking like a fairly conventional police procedural and ends up something much richer and subtler. It's full of nice little surprises that subvert our expectations of this sort of movie as we've come to know it from the Hollywood model. In fact, it's a wonderful example of how the American model can be molded into something more complicated. One example of that is the relationship between the "little lieutenant" and his attractive, middle-aged alcoholic supervisor. It's largely a filial-maternal relationship, but with subtle erotic undertones that keep us guessing at what might (or might not) develop between the two characters. In fact, little about the plot or the characters turn out the way you expect, and that's a fine thing. The movie also has a script written with exceptional skill and economy. We see only one scene between the lieutenant and his wife, and we hear a few additional comments about his marriage in other scenes, but from these brief bits we get a picture of a complex and problematic relationship that tells us as much as we need to know about the couple. While nothing about this movie is flashy, I haven't been able to get it out of my mind since I saw it earlier this week. It's thought provoking and I recommend it highly.

Kyle Giffin Extremely realistic. So much so that it's almost miserable to watch. We see a young and inexperienced police detective adjust to the aspects of his new job - from working through a pistol stoppage on the range, to knocking on doors looking for information about a murder, interviewing people who barely speak his language and trying to integrate with his new coworkers. We also see an experienced police veteran working through the problems that prolonged living in a stressful environment have produced as she returns to work after a two-year sabbatical. She takes the young Antoine with her throughout the course of a murder investigation, and the illustration of the dichotomy between them is nearly perfect. Avoided are the cliché kicking down of doors, Miami Vice / Hawaii 5-0-style firefights, Joe Friday detectives and "arch villains" that typically plague police films. The overall feeling that I had throughout the movie was monotony and despair as I identified with Antoine's feelings of separation, anxiety and of being overwhelmed. We see equally Commandant Vaudieu's sobriety struggle in scenes where her section is gathering at a bar after work for drinks while she orders a glass of mineral water. It's not a happy movie, it's not even entertaining, but it is realistic, extremely well played, and it is a moving, gritty drama that does for PJs what La Chambre des Officiers did for soldiers. It humanises them.

geoffreydeloncle2 As in previous Beauvois' movies, this film is about loss. The loss is everywhere in the movie : the loss of the dead child of the main female character, the loss of a normal couple life for the "petit lieutenant" and, finally, his loss. What makes the movie so interesting is the way in which it uses the form of the cope movie (film noir) as a way to reflect the hardships of living with the memory of the dead, to go on while things are forever changed by their disappearance. At the same time, the form of the cope movie is more than a mere pretext: the director is very much at ease with the conventions of the genre and is very skillful at going beyond by adding stunning realistic elements. There is no heroism there, only gloom and despair. No big man hunt, but a very trivial one. A very good movie. A must see for lovers of french film noir.