So, it takes balls to make a contemporary crime drama-thriller and call it Les Miserables. It takes SERIOUS balls to be a French filmmaker and do that. But Ladj Ly did it and, while this movie was never going to be the kind of epic that Les Miserables is, what the movie is . . . well, it’s an arresting, compelling, masterfully acted and gripping film. It takes place in the district of Paris where Hugo set Les Miserables and it’s the story of a police officer joining an elite group of plainclothes street cops who try to keep the peace between the myriad gangs and factions that share, and occasionally violently clash over, this territory. The world this film creates is incredibly vivid and layered and even the smallest players in this world feel like real people. A lot of these actors are obviously non-professionals, but all the way down to the ground they feel authentic and never ring false. Damien Bonnard is wonderful as the new cop on the beat; it’s a stereotypical part and he has the usual beats to hit, but by the end, he’s deepened the character into something really special. Alexis Manenti gives the most impactful performance as Chris, the leader of the three man squad the film revolves around. He’s arrogant, violent, racist, repulsive; it’s a performance that really grabs you and as he just keeps bulling his way into situations that grow increasingly dangerous as the film progresses, he’s a character that is frustrating and frightening in equal measures. Almamy Kanoute is absolutely perfect as a local shop owner; physically imposing, he towers over most of the other characters and the fact that he’s a character who rarely speaks and then only softly somehow makes him more frightening than many of the others. Issa Perica is natural, charismatic and compelling as a young teenager who finds himself, via, what else, a stupid decision, in the middle of the ever more dangerous crime at the center of this film.
This film, shot in a very hand-held documentary style, excels at creating an atmosphere of claustrophobic tension. The film is filled with confrontations between men, for there are few women to be found here (there is a great cameo by Jeanne Balibar as a high-ranking, aggressive police commissioner). These men are always angry and always a little afraid, always pushing, shoving, shouting and usually in groups. The film opens with an exhilarating sequence of communal joy as French citizens flood the streets to celebrate France’s victory in the World Cup, but the bulk of the film is taken up with the dark flip side of that kind of community emotion and Ly creates an atmosphere where it seems that a horrific act of violence is perpetually mere seconds away, that it would take only one wrong move by anyone for things to explode into bloodshed and death. And it’s probably not spoiling anything to say that it eventually does and when it does, it is as cathartic and harrowing as it needs to be, an intense spectacle of rage and terror. The final two shots of this movie are absolutely perfect in my opinion. The movie leaves us poised on a precipice with our characters and it posits something even more terrifying in the ending than in the body of the film. Les Miserables captures a powder keg, primed to explode; in those final two shots, we realize that the fuse is lit. 4 stars.
tl;dr – street-level crime drama is a masterclass in building tension; thrilling, harrowing and brilliantly acted, it’s a bleak and compelling film about the looming violence of modern society. . 4 stars.