Police

Just when you thought Gérard Depardieu couldn't get any sexier, he made Police. Ladies, if you want to see him as a tough-talking cop, you've got to rent this movie.

This isn't your typical cop flick. It's not loaded with action scenes, it's not particularly gritty, and it's not a comedy about two unlikely partners finding a lasting friendship as they bicker and solve an impossible case. This is just a day-in-the-life movie about cops trying to bust drug-dealers. They have to slog through uncooperative witnesses, red tape, clues that don't lead anywhere, and a moral line that they can't cross but sometimes do. Sophie Marceau is the leading lady, a bad girl who only thinks of herself. She's cute as a button, though, so even though he knows she's bad news, Gérard can't ignore the attraction he feels for her. Check this one out if you're in the mood for a French flick from the '80s with two cutie-pies as the leads.

The French make some very fine films. They also make some really pretentious stinkers. This is of the former variety.

A very well acted and directed film. The seediness of the criminals, prostitutes, the lawyer, and the cops is very well portrayed. You do need a scorecard to tell the good guys from the bad guys in this flick. Which would appear to be exactly the response that the director, Maurice Pialat, wishes to elicit.

Sophie Marceau does a fine job portraying the beautiful but ethically and morally empty Noria. It's very evident that she's using Depardieu's character to achieve her own ends. However, Depardieu knows it too, but cannot help himself.

It's Depardieu's movie and he plays his character perfectly. A combination of arrogance, brutality, macho, humor, and vulnerability. You come to realize that for all of his violence, groping women, and swagger that on some level he is a lost innocent. In one scene where he and Noria are in a car making out, he comments that they're acting like a couple of kids. Noria responds something to the effect that that's exactly why it's so good.

The final scene is played out perfectly by the two main characters. Depardieu is perfect in portraying both anger and vulnerability. The viewer is left with a view of the tough guy left broken hearted by the beautiful but empty hearted girl. The movie is about the basic human tragedy and the grave error of living only for one's own appetites.

Very good movie. It gives the initial impression of only being a tough, French cop film. But it's really a morality play which is done in such an artful manner that you barely notice until the ending. It's also very romantic--if only in a failed sense. It appears to me to make the point that love can only live where there is honesty and a willingness to be open and vulnerable. Hence, it's inevitable death in the sordid world of the "Police".

Police is an objective appraisal of African Muslim community wherein Pialat takes us on a fantastic tour of Parisian drug dealing activities.He has vibrantly portrayed Arab world from an evenhanded French perspective by depicting individuals caught in a vortex of social context.All its characters are so vulnerable that even the slightest fantasy pays a heavy price.Pialat has acquired laudable brilliance from his leading players.Depardieu is exceptionally brilliant in his role as Inspector Mangin.Sophie Marceau is equally impressive in her role as compulsive liar Noria.She has incarnated her role with noteworthy aplomb.Police is a solemn chronicle about the interminable combat involving corrupt people on the one hand and an honest police officer like Mangin on the other hand.Police differs from other films of thriller genre by laying a good deal of emphasis on its protagonists' frame of mind.

Maurice Pialat's Police is a moody, gritty French noir. The film stars Gérard Depardieu as Mangin a rough, no-nonsense police detective, that during the process of trying to bust a Tunisian drug ring falls for a mysterious alluring woman (Sophie Marceau) whose linked heavily with the gang. Maurice Pialat directs this film with his usual stoic motifs, and just like The Mouth Agape it works for this film. The tone is excellent thanks to the use of classic noir elements. The main issue I had with the film, is that that it wasn't concise about what it wanted to achieve, whether that's to be a straight police procedural or a character piece/love story, in the end it becomes a melting pot of different ideas.

Another problem I had with this film was it came across too passive, there was no punch to the story, everything just happens with low energy. The pacing left a-lot to be desired, most of Pialat's work is finely paced, but in a film like this which is more focused on plot it needed to be a bit quicker. There were large portions of the film where I found myself becoming disinterested in what was happening on screen.

This is the weakest film I've seen from Pialat so far. What saves the film from being flat-out boring is Gérard Depardieu's excellent performance. He carries the film by being constantly interesting and engaging. He's also a fantastic conduit for other performers as his energetic screen presence bounces off all the actors in the film. Most notably is his terrific chemistry with Sophie Marceau together they really keep the film alive when it starts to become contrived and uninteresting.

This is the weakest film I've seen from Mubi's retrospective look at Pialat's filmography, which is disappointing because I've enjoyed the majority of his films. In summery Police is a missed opportunity, it's an average crime drama that's boosted by two strong central performances. Police is the last film from Pialat's mostly stellar filmography that I would recommend.

You know "Police" isn't going to be a conventional policier simply because it's directed by Maurice Pialat and Pialat doesn't do conventional. Yes, there's a 'thriller' plot involving drug dealers but the plot is secondary to the way both the police and the criminals are seen to go about their business which in many ways is much the same, (a crooked lawyer, nicely played by Richard Anconina, moves between them with seemingly consummate ease).

The central character is Gerard Depardieu's charming, brutalizing inspector who thinks nothing of beating up suspects to get a confession and both he and the film may remind you of Kirk Douglas in "Detective Story" and it's a beautiful piece of acting. Equally good, as the drug dealer's girl that Depardieu falls for, is Sophie Marceau. Ultimately the 'thriller' plot is all but jettisoned as Pialat digs deeper into the lives and backgrounds of his characters which is just as well as the plot becomes both very complicated and a little ridiculous. Still, this is a Pialat picture; mean, melancholy and fiercely intelligent.