Les Misérables

The film opens with vibrant scenes of crowds in Paris joyously celebrating the French team’s victory in the 2018 FIFA World Cup along the iconic Avenue des Champs-Élysées. This festive moment is depicted as a symbol of unity among diverse social classes and ethnicities within France. Shortly thereafter, we are introduced to Stéphane Ruiz (Damien Bonnard), a police officer fresh to Paris who has recently joined the anti-crime brigade. He finds himself partnered with squad leader Chris (Alexis Manenti) and brigadier Gwada (Djibril Zonga) as they embark on their duties in the neighboring city of Montfermeil.

Chris tends to wield his power aggressively against local youths, while Gwada turns a blind eye to this misconduct; despite feeling discomfort, Stéphane remains apathetic. Meanwhile, Issa, a notorious juvenile delinquent, steals Johnny, a lion cub belonging to a circus, inciting the owner, Zorro, to seek aid from a man referred to as “the Mayor.” Zorro threatens to procure firearms if Johnny isn’t returned. Chris and his team are then assigned the task of finding the stolen cub.

When Issa’s friends upload a photo of him with the stolen cub on Instagram, it inadvertently leads Chris to identify Issa as the thief. A chase ensues, and they manage to capture him. As they try to take him in, Issa claims the cub has escaped. Tensions rise as Issa’s friends launch an attack, hurling objects to prevent his capture. In a chaotic moment, Gwada accidentally teargasses himself and retaliates by shooting Issa in the face with a flash-ball. Although Issa’s friends scatter, the squad soon realizes they have been recorded by an escaping drone. Stéphane insists they should rush Issa to the hospital, but Chris and Gwada dismiss this notion, insisting they focus on locating the drone’s owner.

The trio visits a local contact of Chris’s, leaving Issa in their care while they pursue leads about Buzz, the teen drone owner. They corner Buzz before he can upload the footage, but he escapes, seeking refuge with Salah, a pivotal figure in the local Islamic community. As the squad and the Mayor converge on Salah’s restaurant, a confrontation ignites when Chris attempts an illegal arrest on Buzz. In a moment of negotiation, Stéphane persuades Salah to hand over the drone’s memory card, claiming the shooting was merely an accident.

After retrieving both Issa and the cub, who is fortuitously near them, they are taken back to Zorro. Although they force Issa to apologize, Zorro’s wayward decision almost results in the two being locked inside a cage with a fully grown lion, which frightens Issa deeply. Stéphane’s instinct prompts him to ready his weapon at the lion, but he ultimately chooses restraint. Recognizing that Issa has absorbed a crucial lesson, Chris drops him off, cautioning him to keep the incident under wraps and to attribute his injuries to a fall.

As the day comes to a close, our protagonists seemingly resume their normal lives, but signs of trauma and confusion are present. Issa, abandoned by his father for his behavior, finds himself alone on a dilapidated couch, haunted by the day’s events. Later, Stéphane confronts Gwada at a bar, revealing his awareness that a flash-ball doesn’t discharge accidentally. Gwada, deflecting blame, attributes his actions to the overwhelming stress of the day, but Stéphane, unconvinced, leaves him with the memory card and advises him to “do what you gotta do.”

The following day, while on patrol, the squad is ambushed by a group led by Issa. As they chase them, they fall into a carefully laid trap and find themselves besieged by a larger number of teens, forced into a desperate struggle for survival. Chris suffers an injury from a flying bottle, and any chance of calling for backup crumbles as their vehicle is destroyed by the attackers. The chaos escalates as they even launch an assault on the Mayor’s office, culminating in him being beaten and thrown down stairs.

In a tense moment, Stéphane pleads for help at the closest door, which turns out to be the residence of Buzz, who only fortifies it shut. As Issa prepares a molotov cocktail to finish off the squadron, Stéphane points his gun at him, momentarily locking them in a standoff as the screen fades to black. Just then, a quote from Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables appears: > “Remember this, my friends: there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators.”

Last Updated: November 16, 2024 at 11:30