In der Nacht des 12.

A new movie by Dominick Moll is to be seen, his movies being rich with surprising details. This night of the 12 is the police investigation about the violent death of Clara, a young woman who had love relations with real weird young men looking for dangerous sensations, as it often happens nowadays. Yes, the young people we see are not socially stable, most of them are real completely lost misfits. And it's quite frightening as Clara's parents are well established and happy together. This discomfort also happens in the police who has more and more difficulties to understand this new deranged society. And we understand how important are the methods for searching the unknown, and the judge played by Anouk Grinberg is important. In this realistic portrait of our modern society, the entire cast play wonderfully, with a special bravo to Bastien Bouillon as the determined police captain and Pierre Lottin as a frightening kind of hooligan.

On the surface "La nuit du 12" is a raw, powerful police drama, but it's layered with many social topics that give it a special kind of depth. Although constantly focused on the main case (shocking and inexplicable by the way - the stuff that "real horror" is made of) the movie manages to raise some fundamental debates about human behavior, love, fear, marriage, domestic abuse, sense of duty, etc.

To me it feels kind of like "Roubaix, une lumière", but keeping a more general or "abstract" approach.

Based on a real case and the experiences of the French judicial police, the movie is raised to another level by some stellar performances from basically the entire cast, a very solid experience that leaves a mark on the viewer. Highly recommended!

French filmmakers are the kings of realistic cop films. Here's another story of a detective haunted by a difficult case. The resolution is spoiled in the very first credits, so the expectations are clearly set from the start. That doesn't make the investigation process any less interesting, with good characters, good dialogues and an enthralling pace that resembles the drifty focus of a detective working overtime.

It had me glued to the screen. Then, suddenly, after some timely reflections on male violence, several female characters appear out of nowhere and become the ones with the good ideas, the initiative, the answers, the ones in control of their emotions... it's not subtle at all. There are several allusions to the ineffective police work of male detectives specifically. At first it didn't bother me because the script is intelligent, on the whole, and not at all the usual Hollywood schmaltz, but this abrupt shift in content, tone and style is off-putting, the narrative becomes blatant, as if it was written by someone else. These scenes are added to the more or less fictionalised account of real events, I don't know, it certainly feels like something "added" to find a solution to the plot.

This does not affect the point they're making though, it's a strong one, presented here as in no other film I know of, with a case that speaks for itself. At the heart of the violence there is also a place for the police, and they're both full of men. It elevates the film, regardless of one's opinion on the late, abrupt loss of subtlety.

On the surface, this French Best Picture Cesar Award winner appears to be a straight police procedural about a case of a young woman brutally killed on her way home from a girl's night out. Dominik Moll's (WITH A FRIEND LIKE HARRY) adaption of Pauline Guera's non-fiction book about a true case changes the setting from Paris to Grenoble in the French Alps (Gilles Marchand collaborated with Moll on the script). Taking the story out of the hustle and bustle of the big city gives the movie more of an intimate flavor.

The two main cops on the case are a crusty older policeman Marceau (Bouli Lanners) and the younger new head of the squad, Yohan (Bastien Bouillon). The murder victim, Clara (Lula Cotton-Frapier), at first seems like a typical 21 year old - happy and well-liked. As the investigation continues they discover that she had a series of risky encounters with various guys. As more and more men are revealed, the more vexing the case becomes for instead of narrowing the potential pool of suspects, it widens them.

The frustration makes Marceau increasingly edgy. He is going through his own relationship issues and tarts to crack, lashing out at the potential killers. Yohan on the other hand, becomes more introspective, more intense. While many in the department and the public begin pointing the finger at the victim, Clara, Yohan feels more and more protective of the dead woman. It all increases his obsession with the case - and Clara's memory and reputation.

The decision to move the location to a smaller town is a wise one. Not only does it allow a more personal touch, it virtually eliminates the notion that it was some random killing as you would have in a metropolis like Paris. Everybody knows everyone in the area, but they seem oblivious about what secrets are happening all around them. Lanners and Bouillon are very good, as is Pauline Sereiys as Clara's best friend. Later on, two strong women characters, a Judge (Anouk Grinberg) and a fellow police officer (Mouna Soualem) enter the investigation and buttress Yohan's compulsion for the case.

NIGHT OF THE 12TH is a strong and disturbing drama. It may not satisfy those who want easy answers, but it realistically shows the frustrations inherent in police work and reality that justice isn't a guarantee for all.

In its bones, this is a police procedural of a pretty classic sort, albeit with an overlay of social awareness, But it's done with enough style and restraint to make it a very satisfying example of the genre, in an excellent French tradition that goes back to Quai des Orfèvres and the outstanding 2005 film Le Petit lieutenant, to name just those. It involves a group of cops from the Grenoble branch of France's Police judiciaire, the equivalent of the criminal-investigation side of the FBI (vs. The latter's national-security functions, which are handled elsewhere). The P. J. takes over from the local police or (in this case) the gendarmerie, in really tough and complex investigations, as it does in the real-life murder case that is re-enacted here. Operating in tandem with an investigating magistrate, it has, as is demonstrated here, awesome investigative powers.

Not that they are of much use in this frustrating case, where, as the chief investigator points out, any of a whole range of suspects could easily have been the murderer of an attractive, charismatic young woman as she returns home on foot from an evening with her pals, even though there's no convincing evidence against any of them. It's no spoiler to say that the case, which eats away at the investigators, remains unsolved -- we're told this before the film even starts. So there are no triumphs of police work, and all seeming breakthroughs lead nowhere, all of which gives the film unusual texture. The agents are smart, determined, well-trained, and sensitive, and the film is as much about how they deal (not always well) with the limitations they come up against as it is about the more explicit, and perhaps overemphasized, theme of male abuse of women.

Some of the usual tropes of the genre are present. There are tensions within a group of policemen (the one woman appears later, to welcome effect) of contrasting personalities, with arguments over procedure and over basic philosophies, and there's a digression into the marital difficulties of one of them, Marceau, played powerfully by the Belgian actor Bouli Lanners. All this is handled with uncommon deftness and understatement. Add to this the spectacular mountain scenery of the Grenoble area, and La nuit du 12 drew me in and held me.

Much of the film is carried on the shoulders of the strikingly youthful lead investigator, Capitaine Yohann Vivès, played very convincingly by relative newcomer Bastien Bouillon, for whom I hope this will be a breakthrough. Both the character and the actor himself are given tough assignments. In the actor's case, the screenplay calls for him to communicate via long silences, during which he is required to react through only the subtlest shifts of expression, something he does remarkably well. He's also very convincing in his handling of the smart, slangy dialogue that the excellent screenplay assigns to him. Not all the sharp wordplay can make it into the subtitles, but the laughter around me this evening made it seem like not that much is lost, either.

So: La Nuit du 12 may not be a great classic for the ages, but, for its thoughtfulness, its wit and sincerity, and some very fine acting by all concerned, it is a very satisfying entertainment.