The first 90 minutes of this film is a quite impressive multiple viewpoint drama showing the difficult interactions in a rundown Paris immigrant neighborhood between an ethically challenged three member police unit, the impoverished immigrant residents (largely Moslem and African), and assorted adolescents. The presentation is quite realistic. I was moved.
If the movie had ended there, I might rate it a 9. Unfortunately it did not. Instead the film is marred by its violent not credible ending. Hence my rating of 7.
On one day, while investigating a case concerning the theft of a lion cub, the three policemen are set upon by the adolescent thief's teen age friends. The children threaten the police. They throw rocks. The police overreact, seriously injuring the thief as he tries to escape. Various consequences ensue, but in the end a level of calm is apparently restored.
Alas, in revenge the next day the three police and several other adults are ambushed by a highly organized gang of young men wearing black hoodies. Garbage cans and shopping carts are thrown at the police down flights of stairs. Flares and fireworks are shot at the police. The police behave stupidly. Rather than wait for back-up, they put themselves into a situation of extreme life-threatening danger. The adolescents, instead of behaving as a disorganized gang of delinquents, suddenly show an almost military level of tactics and organization and a lethal rage.
Frightening and as disturbing as this violence is, intellectually I simply could not buy into it. Sorry, but a group of socially marginalized boys cannot be transformed in a single day into an almost military level combat unit.
If the movie had ended there, I might rate it a 9. Unfortunately it did not. Instead the film is marred by its violent not credible ending. Hence my rating of 7.
On one day, while investigating a case concerning the theft of a lion cub, the three policemen are set upon by the adolescent thief's teen age friends. The children threaten the police. They throw rocks. The police overreact, seriously injuring the thief as he tries to escape. Various consequences ensue, but in the end a level of calm is apparently restored.
Alas, in revenge the next day the three police and several other adults are ambushed by a highly organized gang of young men wearing black hoodies. Garbage cans and shopping carts are thrown at the police down flights of stairs. Flares and fireworks are shot at the police. The police behave stupidly. Rather than wait for back-up, they put themselves into a situation of extreme life-threatening danger. The adolescents, instead of behaving as a disorganized gang of delinquents, suddenly show an almost military level of tactics and organization and a lethal rage.
Frightening and as disturbing as this violence is, intellectually I simply could not buy into it. Sorry, but a group of socially marginalized boys cannot be transformed in a single day into an almost military level combat unit.