In a year when François Ozon crafted the emotionally rich, fact-based By the Grace of God and Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire landed on numerous critics’ Best of 2019 lists, it’s baffling that France selected Les Misérables as the country’s contender — and eventual nominee — for the Best International Film at the Academy Awards.
Little more than a middling cover band version of Training Day, yet bereft of that film’s dramatic and cinematic richness, writer/director Ladj Ly’s film tracks freshly transferred Parisian police officer Stéphane (Damien Bonnard) throughout his first day on the job with shady colleagues Chris (Alexis Manenti) and Gwada (Djebril Zonga).
Clichéd power-abusing mistreatment of innocent bystanders and hazing of the new guy ensue, and the plot finally kicks into gear when the accidental shooting of a child is captured by a video camera drone, prompting more shady activity by the po-pos on the way to finding the drone’s pilot before the compromising footage leaks and/or gets into “the wrong hands.”
Though generally well-made in a handheld, docudrama sort of way and featuring bursts of excitement, Les Misérables clumsily weaves in spats between warring gangs on the cops’ beat and incomprehensibly rotten behavior by street urchin Issa (Issa Perica) that makes his character’s arc nearly impossible to care about.
The film also squanders the opportunity to end on an ambiguous note that intelligently humanizes its subjects, dragging on with one big action-packed finale that’s more endurance test than merited conclusion and undoes the character-based gains it has worked hard to establish.
Starts Feb. 7 at Grail Moviehouse
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