Squad 36 Movie Review: Corrupt Agents and Ruthless Criminals in a Solid Detective Story
At the center of the film is a policeman who, after being transferred, finds himself investigating his old team following the death of two colleagues and the disappearance of another. Olivier Marchal's new Polar is on Netflix.
Antoine Cerda is a young police officer who is transferred from the prestigious Brigade de Recherche et d'Intervention (BRI) to the Anti-Crime Brigade by order of the Internal Affairs Department, as his systematic participation in clandestine meetings organized by criminal circles has come to light. A new beginning in which he temporarily cuts ties with his old companions, but as we know the past always knocks on the door.
In Squad 36 the protagonist finds himself having to deal a few months later with a series of disturbing events related to his former team: two of his former colleagues have been killed and another has disappeared into thin air for several days now, so much so that the latter's wife has directly asked for his help. While dealing with a certain hostility from the police higher-ups, Antoine will end up getting involved in a criminal intrigue at the highest levels and will not be able to trust anyone if he intends to complete the mission and at the same time save his skin.
Squad 36: those who don't die will see it again
Those familiar with Olivier Marchal's cinema will already know what to expect and Squad 36, a new exclusive in the Netflix catalog, fully maintains that stylistic and narrative idea that has accompanied the French director for some time now. A former policeman, he has poured his personal experiences into his films, managing to create always credible contexts that capture - more or less the title - the often controversial charm of these "dirty and bad" environments.
Since the masterful 36 quai des orfèvres (2004), a cult that brought him to prominence in which Daniel Auteuil and Gérard Depardieu towered in a competition of skill, our man has accompanied us in thorny events, populated by the right faces in the right places grappling with the wrong decisions, with the specter of corruption and increasingly ruthless criminality as a backdrop to the stories of disillusioned policemen.
Good does not exist in the Netflix film
Squad 36 does not deny the rule and proves to be a solid genre entertainment, a modern polar direct evolution of the cinema of Jean-Pierre Melville, which sees multi-ethnic contemporary France as the shady theater of events, complete with popular districts - and already visited in the past by Marchal himself, to the point that the recurring number 36 is certainly not accidental - and the various internal divisions within the forces of law and order in conflict with each other, when the sole purpose should be to put an end to crime.
But money dominates everything and everyone, throwing into uncertainty even those who should enforce it and instead tarnish it. The screenplay does not give discounts, makes anyone potentially expendable and loads the whole thing with a tense verisimilitude, which until the epilogue is overshadowed by uncertainties about the actual fate of the various parties involved.
A question of gender?
All this of course with an eye on the action, which from the first seconds shows its muscles: the initial stakeout with subsequent chase through the streets of Paris is managed to perfection, with a dry and snappy dynamism that does not leave you indifferent. Shootouts and twists follow one another in the remaining minutes, with good management of the various factions and the right mix between character actors and protagonists.
The main role is entrusted to Victor Belmondo, grandson of the late legend of French cinema Jean-Paul, who does reasonably well in a role that is not easy to read, free from over-acting or key scenes of any kind. In a story that at times risks becoming a slave to a certain cyclicality, with the two-odd hours of viewing that could have been better orchestrated in terms of rhythm.
Squad 36 is nevertheless able to maintain high interest until the final showdown, between last-minute surprises and great-themed maxims: "Morality begins where the police end" is destined to remain imprinted in the genre's imagination.
Conclusions
A policeman transferred for self-destructive tendencies, close to turning illegal, finds himself involved in the investigation of his former team, after the death of two colleagues and the disappearance of another. What he will discover will also put his life at risk and the price of the truth could be too high...
Squad 36 sees director Olivier Marchal return to his genre of belonging, with another solid detective story, dirty and bad like its protagonists, with the boundaries of good and evil between the two barricades that mix more and more, tending towards the second side. Action and tension are at good levels for the entire two hours of viewing, even with some drops in pace here and there in a dark and hopeless story.