L.627 - Corrupção Policial

I remember vividly watching the film in 1996. It had a recommendation (as it says on the poster): 'Just as gritty as Reservoir Dogs'. We were disappointed. This wasn't Reservoir Dogs at all!

How wrong was I. Twenty years later there are a lot of documentary-like series about the lives of cops, for example Engranages. Well, L627 is EXACTLY as these TV series, but twenty years earlier. The cops from L627 and Engranages both work in the underbelly of Paris, where tourists won't come. We see the REAL lives of cops. Eating together, joking together, doing undercover operations together, shouting at each other, visiting squats. These are not the overly cool cops from other films, these are real people dealing with fears and tensions. The only thing from the series that is missing here, are judges and lawyers.

The thing that stands out, is how all kinds of stories are intertwined, just like in real life (and just like in Engranages), without leading towards a 'bad guy' to catch, as crime flicks usually do. It's about an hopeless fight against the drugs trade, without the proper resources. Suddenly you realize how much improvisation and intelligence this job needs. A job in which you even have to negotiate with a school director about using a classroom for a lookout, you can't have a decent car and have to pay your own camera when you want to film something.

No wonder it has been written by Tavernier together with a drug squad detective. With its two hours runtime L627 is almost as a mini TV series in itself. And just like Engranages and The Wire it boasts not only realism, but also terrific acting by a largely unknown cast. As in these series they have a wonderful chemistry together – for example when they are joking with each other. There's even one running joke… In the midst of all this is Lulu. He is only loosely the protagonist – as was Laure in Engranages (who has many similarities with the character of Marie in this film, by the way).

It isn't a pretty film, it has not really a cinematic feeling you are used to. But it is ahead of its time as many films nowadays are aiming at documentary-like realism. Therefore it demands a lot of attention and concentration in the beginning and it might be difficult to get into. It is certainly NOT the kind of film teenagers would like to see, I can say from my own experience.

"L-627" touches on an issue explored several times in many films and TV series, which is the problems faced by police forces while dealing with the organized crime, yet it looks like something never seen before. While many of those films that dealt with the theme always feel the need to show some piece of the action (or just become it rather than make its denounce) this movie seems more concerned in just following the many pieces of a failed mechanism, the bureaucracy that doesn't allow those honest, hard workers and badly paid people to do their job with efficiency. It's a system so failed and broken that the only way for these law men act is to use of brutality, wrong doings and corruption as way to survive, stay alive or fulfill the law the "best" way they can.

Miles away from being the usual thriller/action flick, "L-627" is a realistic closer look at the day-to-day of a police team and their methods to bring down an important drug dealer. Most of the time is occupied by arresting couriers, minor bandits acquaintance of those bigger ones, and lots and lots of paperwork, stakeouts and beating of suspects. The main character, Lulu, is an inspector (Didier Bezace) transfered to another team after a misunderstanding with his superior. Things were supposed to look worse than it was but no, it looks the same to him, slightly better. He still needs to deal with lazy and irresponsible co-workers, more concerned about playing pranks at each other or acting in the wrong time instead of following the rules. To make things more complicated he has to deal with personal matter such as his occasional lover, a prostitute with many problems of her own; and also deal with his ex-wife, lives already torn apart due to his commitment with his career in the force.

Although there's some lack of a chief figure around their team, the pressure is present at all times. It is soaked in their bones and it follows them through the every operation, every missed chance. At a certain point, while improvising a stakeout inside of a school, you feel like supporting these characters in their arrest of a suspect even though the cops were rude and careless about what the headmaster is saying to them. It's the only way they can work, they don't have other ways. It's not by the book but in the end it was the right thing to do. And the saddest part is that most of their effort goes to waste when the judicial system sets free many of the people they detained, because of lack of proof, crooks who have money to pay for their bails, and things like that. Yet, the inspector needs to show results, chase, run, escape from bullets and eminent danger to make those arrests...

This truly looks as a real movie about real police stations out there around the world. It's quite a shock that even in a great developed country like France you would see such a thing happening. It's a work of fiction but of course they were looking at real examples. I couldn't leave behind "Elit Squad" and its sequel. Those movies, made years later and based on biographical accounts that took place in Brazil, are very similar in its story treatment and criticism about the police system. The difference is that in "Squad" you have a certain detachment because it tries to be the generic and exaggerated action film, filled with stars, and very didactic with an overexposed voice-over from the main character (already a classic in here) while "L-627" is almost like a documentary with relatively unknown actors, and all centered in the few perks of the job - pay attention to the many humored moments they have as a group - and its countless disadvantages. Bertrand Tavernier got perfectly right with the casting, allowing the audience to be there with the characters rather than following a main star doing all the action. All the performances are terrific, but the highlight goes to Mr. Bezace, who plays this anti-hero/common man easy for us to relate with, even in his hardest moments, completely out of control. Yet he loves all that stress and the pressure that comes with all the obstacles present in its work. Tavernier's view on the problems faced by police corporations is relatively the same and present everywhere, that's why it's relevant (even now) to watch a movie like this. You get a wider understanding on why being in such line of work is ungrateful, and very tempting that good professionals may succumb to addictions, corruption, or abusing of their authority.

I only object to a certain slowness from the plot, staggering really bad sometimes, and the fact of having two extremely similar guys acting on the same team. There's an actor, also playing a policeman, who looked exactly like Lulu and it was very confusing to set them apart from one another. Other than those rubbish complaints, "L-627" is a powerful movie with a great statement to make. 9/10

TFO is running a series of Bertrand Tavernier's films; L. 627 is just another example of this man's bewildering versatility--costume epics, science fiction, exotic noir, gritty slice-of-life pictures. Here we have police procedure with a more despairing tone than Hollywood has ever given us. The light cynicism of the French Connection has become a cry of despair over police corruption and bureaucratic nonsense. The only problem: at 145 minutes, it's far too long, since there is no plot the viewer can hang on to, just a series of vignettes.

The actors are great: Lara Guirao impresses as the HIV-positive hooker whom Lulu is attracted to, but can't have sex with. Philippe Torreton is his usual frightening self as Lulu's partner, while Jean-Paul Comart is the boss from hell: irresponsible (tear gas in the coin toilet), concerned only with filling quotas. Dodo leads the squad into a squalid room with two African women and a baby, the resulting foul-up has to be seen to be believed. Didier Bezace wise-cracks his way through the chaos, showing us some of his pain.

The story is about policemen who work in a "commissariat" in Paris, France. They have to do their job everyday, running after little robbers or little drug dealers... The movie is very far from police stories we can see everyday in others movies, with great detectives, mafias... In fact, Bertrand Tavernier, with the help of an ancient policeman for the scenario, tries to catch policemen every day work, with their little problems with the hierarchy... I think this movie is the most "real" about police problems in France.

A police investigator specializes in busting as many narcotics dealers as he can, but aside from the sad fact that drugs seem to have permanently permeated society, his sincere efforts are often undermined by his own department superiors. Both aspects are very well dramatized. As well, he faces the problem in a more personal way because of his ambiguous relationship with a heroin addict prostitute. At one point his best street informant is exposed by one of the officers in his own police unit, who declares that "you can always find another one". Laying the groundwork, going from stakeout to stakeout and from slum to slum, the film has a gritty authenticity and the main character played by Didier Bezace makes a unique cop who actually believes in what he's doing.