Picture: Netflix
The latest movie from director Olivier Marchal, also creator of the show Blood Coast, stars Victor Belmondo investigating the gruesome murders of two of his former colleagues on his own.
For close to three decades, writer, actor, and director Olivier Marchal has enjoyed a steady career as one of the most in-demand talents for gritty crime dramas and thrillers in France. His newest movie, Squad 36, has been produced by his longtime studio, Gaumont, for Netflix and is his second movie produced directly for streamers, after Overdose, produced for Prime Video in 2022. A former police detective himself, Marchal is also fond of carrying gritty French novels to the screen, this time with the book Flic Requiem by Michel Tourscher. The movie is set in the elite anti-criminal unit BRI, and Marchal dedicates the movie to some of his acquaintances who have worked within the unit. This tale of corruption, nihilism, and morally grey characters is also anticipated because it is a spiritual sequel to one of his most successful movies, 36, Quai Des Orfèvres (2004), which went on to garner critical and public acclaim in France and abroad.
Victor Belmondo and Juliette Dol. Credit : Laurent Le Crabe/Netflix.
The hero of this movie, Antoine Cerda (played by Victor Belmondo, one of the grandsons of French screen legend Jean-Paul Belmondo) is a commandant of the French BRI unit in Paris, addicted to complex cases, adrenaline, and clandestine MMA fighting in his free time. As the aftermath of one of his fights gets out of hand, his secret is out to his hierarchy, who transfers him to an antidrug unit as the result of an administrative sanction. Six months later, Antoine crosses paths with his former colleagues again as one of his colleagues is brutally executed in his car, after calling him: he refers to an operation gone wildly wrong, one that his colleagues and himself might pay a dear price for. Antoine sets out to investigate on his own, against the warnings of his former supervisors and new head, Cécile Wagner (Lydia Andréi). He will uncover a vast criminal conspiracy involving crooked cops, circumstances gone wrong and ruthless drug lords, one that will quickly endanger his life and the ones closest to him.
Victor Belmondo as Antoine Cerda. Credit : Laurent Le Crabe/Netflix.
In the testosterone-filled universe of Olivier Marchal’s movies, no characters are rays of sunshine. All carry a heavy, violence-filled past and have to juggle a ruthless job with their own personal traumas and demons. Starting with a sequence of a dangerous tail of a suspect around Paris, in heavy rain, that goes really wrong with a risk of endangerment of civilians, Squad 36 revels in showing characters getting their work done by any means necessary, and who have no issues ruffling feathers in high places. As one of the punchlines of the movie says, “The moral lines are drawn just outside of the French police”. As the movie takes its time setting up the plot and graphic shockers, we get to know a little bit better Antoine and his former colleagues, as well as his volatile relationship with his on-off again girlfriend (played by Juliette Dol). As their psychology often is depicted as paper-thin, the second half goes heavy on twists, deceptions, and action, all the way to an explosive showdown inspired by its cult American counterparts, and a bitter ending that does not really tie loose ends neatly.
Mostly, it’s another showcase for Marchal’s themes of gifted detectives torn between their professional integrity, a fragile brotherhood in the face of hostile internal politics, and the temptation of vigilante-style justice and isolation from their families and loved ones. Soon, the ballet of doomed characters becomes darker as Marchal ponders explosive questions with the public about the value of “good police” in the face of ever-expanding global drug rings. Alas, it stays in the shadow of its prestige predecessor, with career-best turns by Daniel Auteuil, Gérard Depardieu, and André Dussollier. It should tide French crime drama fans over until the arrival of the second season of Blood Coast, currently in post-production and also starring Tewfik Jallab in a lead role.
Watch Squad 36 If You Like
- Blood Coast
- Public Disorder
- November
- Athena
MVP of Squad 36
Jean-Michel Correia as Karim Mahmoudi
As with many genre thrillers, a movie is often as good as the sum of its small parts. Believable, capable supporting roles make a movie all the more enjoyable. As Tewfik Jallab and Yvan Attal, the supervisor, give strong performances, the MVP might be Jean-Michel Correia, an imposing presence as drug lord Karim Mahmoudi, who is the subject of a years-long investigation by BRI. His cautious, no-nonsense psyche and imposing physical presence carries a real sense of threat for Cerda and his colleagues. Correia carries a long experience in supporting roles across cinema and series, and began as a consultant for jail-related sequences on major French movies; he also wrote and directed a little-seen semi-autobiographical movie, Sous X, released in 2019. As the investigation progresses and targets Mahmoudi once again, this man of a few words makes his few sequences incredibly effective, including a terse interrogation of a witness later in the movie.
Brutal action scenes, gritty characters, and an unexpected ending make up for somewhat redundant themes and problems of pacing in the first half of the movie.
