Les Misérables

Les Misérables follows Damien Bonnard’s Stéphane as he arrives in Paris for his first day of work within the city’s plain-clothes SCU division, with the picture detailing the complications that ensue for Stéphane and his two partners (Alexis Manenti’s Chris and Djibril Zonga’s Gwada) during the former’s first full day on the job. Filmmaker Ladj Ly has infused Les Misérables with a documentary-like atmosphere that proves instrumental in initially capturing the viewer’s interest, as the movie otherwise suffers from a rather familiar atmosphere that’s exacerbated by the three well-acted yet entirely unsympathetic lead performances. (The picture is, after all, likely to remind most of the similarly-themed Training Day, albeit without that superior effort’s dynamic protagonists.) It does become increasingly clear that, despite its raft of positive attributes, there’s not a whole lot within Les Misérables worth getting terribly excited about or invested in, which, in turn, prevents the viewer from wholeheartedly sympathizing with the central characters’ increasingly perilous exploits and ultimately diminishes the impact of the action-packed third act. By the time the abrupt and curiously didactic finale rolls around, Les Misérables has confirmed its place as a well-made yet mostly uninvolving debut for a filmmaker that admittedly does show quite a bit of promise.

** out of ****