086 REVIEW
Directed by
LADJ LY
Starring
DAMIEN BONNARD
ALEXIS MANENTI
DJEBRIL ZONGA
Released
24 APRIL
ANTICIPATION.
Picked over Portait of a Lady on
Fire as France’s International
Feature Oscar submission.
ENJOYMENT.
Lots of meaty confrontation,
but all feels a tad generic
by the final stretch.
IN RETROSPECT.
An politically-charged urban
western. Will keep an eye out for
Ly’s follow-up.
hen social deprivation plummets to a
level where young lads think nothing
of stealing a lion cub from a travelling
circus, then you know things have gotten out of
hand. Yet this is exactly what’s happening in the
Parisian banlieu of Montfermeil, where schisms
along all lines are turning high-rise estates into
hives of lawlessness. And when people are unable
to live peaceably and harmoniously, and feel that
it’s A- Okay to just steal a lion, the police then feel
they’re empowered to employ slightly off-the-
books oppression in order to retain a semblance
of order. Put simply, they can rough people up on
their rounds and there’s not a sweet thing that can
be done about it.
Ladj Ly’s debut feature, Les Misérables, is
ripped from personal experience and set on the
infamous housing estate “les Bosquets”. It follows
the professional baptism of fire experienced by hair
gel addict rookie cop Stéphane (Damien Bonnard)
who, on his first day, escapes the clutches of death
a number of times. He cruises along with Djebril
Zonga’s chill urban warrior, Gwada, and Alexis
Manenti’s gale-force rageoholic, Chris, as the team
spend their day harassing randos and throwing their
weight about like ginned-up rustlers. The incident
with the lion cub occurs, a hub-bub ensues, the
trigger on a flash ball gun goes off and, in the residual
heat of France’s 2018 World Cup victory, a full-scale
meltdown seems inevitable. Plus, regular hush-up
tactics don’t apply in this case, as a bothersome
drone-cam being flown by one of the young residents,
catches the whole incident from on high.The film comes across as a less stylised, less self-
consciously poetic ( but no less effective) update of
Mathieu Kassovitz’ powder-keg 1995 feature, La
Haine, which introduced the world to the horrors of
daily life outside the snow globe of central Paris. It’s
the type of film you’d expect concerned politicos
to watch and then solemnly announce that they
now understand the work that needs to be done in
areas rife with poverty, while also acknowledging
the institutional rot within the police force – and
then take no further action. In his direction and
writing (the latter completed in collaboration
with Giordano Gederlini and Alexis Manenti), Ly
apportions blame fairly, and to be honest, there’s no
one here to root for save the hapless Stéphane, and
even he turns the odd blind eye to Chris’ berserko
outbursts.
Aside from its admirable sense of moral
objectivity, the film also purrs along nicely as a
slick thriller that arrives at a satisfyingly bombastic
climax in which fireworks are repurposed as ad hoc
bazookas in order to send those dirty pigs a skin-
searing lesson they’ll never forget. If the film has
an issue, it’s that the plotting is too fastidious, and
everything fits together a little too neatly. The
chaotic aspect of the situation is captured in the
many bouts of group shouting, but then most of the
supporting cast operate like they would in a genre
film rather than real life. Plus, the moment where
the drone just happens to hover over the pivotal
altercation does feel a tad far-fetched, even with
the reams of portentious build-up that is front-
loaded into the plot. DAVID JENKINSLes Misérables
W