Alicia I love this movie so much

Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

Aubrey Hackett While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

sergepesic I am not surprised that quite a few of the movie watchers have hard time with this flick. If you are addicted to car chases, random explosions and endless and mindless entertainment, this is definitely not the right movie for you. I, myself can't abide Hollywood garbage. So, I reach out to the rest of the world for quality art movies." The Young Lieutenant" is a perfect little gem of a movie. Even without all the obvious staples of the genre, there is more power and emotion in every single scene than in all of the stupid, badly written, computer generated Hollywood excuses for a movie together. Great actors and strong raw feelings and life as it is, without adornment. I am happy with that.

philipbn Often French films use Anglo-American genres to interesting effect. This was as true of "A bout de soufflé" / "Breathless" and the cop movies of that period as it is here. I don't know Beauvois' (the director's) work very well, but here, as several comments have pointed out, he is using the conventions of the contemporary Anglo-Am "procedural" crime dramas (especially the various Helen Mirren ones). To me, the film succeeds and is quite enjoyable, largely thanks to very strong and striking performances by Jalil Lespert as the "young lieutenant" Antoine Derouere of the title, and Nathalie Baye in the role of his commanding officer, Commandant Vaudieu.Both these actors are terrific. Lespert was great in the taut labor drama "Human Resources" (1999) and Baye is of course a major figure. With a fine supporting cast, they develop very strong characters and a moving drama that doesn't heroize or fetishize the police apparatus (as Anglo-American procedural films almost invariably do), but rather humanizes it and emphasizes the suffering and loss that it involves. Rather than magically resolving and banishing fears and social responsibility by projecting responsibility for crime onto irrational others, as Anglo-American police dramas do, this film recognizes the irreducible problems that police workers face, and dramatizes the lives of realistically-developed characters, not the fantasy figures that populate most dramas of this kind.So yes, the film does refer to Anglo-Am procedural dramas and the Helen-Mirren type of character, but it develops these in very interesting ways that go beyond the Anglo-Am subgenre. Lespert and Baye deliver very strong performances, and the film is a good illustration of how some French directors and writers can take popular genres and give them twists that would be difficult to find in the English-language versions. No fantasy explosions or violence- or cadaver- porn, but a moving drama about human experience in a sadly violent social order.Also, a great strong role for a middle-aged woman, which one doesn't see every day. This seemed to me one of Baye's stronger recent films.

anderzzz-1 A young tough guy, eager to be a real cop solving real crime, and to be really cool. A middle-aged woman, alone, with personal problems but well organized and effective. Put these two together in a big city ("the jungle") in some cheesy office rooms, and you may expect to see another cliché cop-movie. But you're wrong.First of all, this film contains not much action at all. The murder that things evolve around is not the main attraction, it is more of a catalyst for the development of the humans on screen. Furthermore, there is no music to "guide" us emotionally, and no extreme display of emotions (or overacting) as is so common. Instead we follow the characters at distance, but emotions are there, but like in real life, poorly articulated and often ambiguous. And the less glamorous work of attending an autopsy, and reactions to it, is also shown; just the sound is disgusting, and that scene of the film has for me a really artistic feeling to it: it highlights the "fleshy-ness" of the body, that it is not just an abstract piece in life, but something bulky, ugly, imperfect and vulnerable, which is quite a contrast to how the young tough guy probably considers himself.These aspects together means that the film is more real. That does not have to be an advantage for a film - good film rarely limit itself to a display of reality. But to follow the development of the characters, their life and work, from a distance, sometimes with some police action added, as you do in a very precise way in this film, is very rewarding. This is a good drama with action content.

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.