Petit lieutenant, Le 2005

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: The film's plot, revolving around a murder investigation that turns nasty, ticks along smoothly and efficiently. But it's ultimately more of a character drama, and a reminder that great acting often has little to do with words. Read more

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: Beauvois makes the milieu his own, too, showing us credible and affecting human beings caught up in a world that often reveals humanity at its worst. Read more

New York Magazine/Vulture: ... a bit too underplayed for its own good. Read more

Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: When the action finally picks up in the pursuit of a ruthless Russian gang of killers, the relationship between Caroline and Antoine is delivered a devastating emotional wallop. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: The movie's realism is unimpeachable, though American cops might be stunned by the idea of a half-dozen detectives being assigned to the murder of an anonymous floater. Read more

Amelie Gillette, AV Club: Le Petit Lieutenant spends too much time laying the groundwork for a story that could be told more succinctly, but Beauvois works hard to establish office chemistry and orient Lespert to his new surroundings. Read more

Leighton Walter Kille, Boston Globe: ... you can sense Baye's struggling within the limits imposed on her. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: A quiet powerhouse of a film, an implacable, uncompromising French police drama, both old-fashioned and modern, that underlines the reasons impeccably made crime stories do so well on screen. Read more

Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle: Just as the French may overrate our cinema (Jerry Lewis, anyone?), we may overrate theirs. Take Le Petit Lieutenant -- please. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Nathalie Baye is remarkable in Le Petit Lieutenant where she plays Caroline Vaudieu, a Parisian police inspector who returns to her post after a bout with alcoholism following her child's death. Read more

David Germain, Associated Press: A quiet powerhouse of a film, an implacable, uncompromising French police drama, both old-fashioned and modern, that underlines the reasons impeccably made crime stories do so well on-screen. Read more

Ella Taylor, L.A. Weekly: Xavier Beauvois' police procedural owes more to Prime Suspect and Hill Street Blues than it does to any film genre. And it's all the better for it, if you can withstand the glacial pace and loving attention to the smallest details. Read more

John Anderson, Newsday: The results, while a bit overlong, are engaging and real. Read more

Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: The relationship between an enthusiastic young Paris homicide detective and his middle-age female supervisor is as important as the murders they are trying to solve in Xavier Beauvois' taut police procedural. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: Le Petit Lieutenant is a flinty, almost hardhearted work about characters who have lost almost everything in pursuit of some undefinable abstraction, like honor or their country or doing the right thing. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: ...More than any film in recent memory, Le Petit Lieutenant conveys the relentless toll of big-city police work. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: I won't give away the plot twist, except to say that the final minute of the movie is one of the most bleak, and moving, endings I've seen in years. Read more

Bill Stamets, Chicago Sun-Times: Le Petit Lieutenant looks at Antoine's life with lyricism. Read more

Leslie Felperin, Variety: The Young Lieutenant seems so determined to reproduce the drudgery of police work, it's boring for the first hour, and only marginally more exciting for the second. Read more

Michael Atkinson, Village Voice: Tragedy, when it comes, does not involve us -- we're kept at arm's length through to the final retribution. Read more

Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: Le Petit Lieutenant shows how good French movies can be when they stay French and don't try to go international. Read more