Maybe Cameron was right; we shouldn’t join the single currency and create closer ties with Europe because they’re savages. It makes Taggart look like a particularly dour episode of The Bill, where PC Reg Hollis returns a stolen wheelchair to disabled child. To be honest, if anything, the criminals seemed more law abiding. The crack team of officers in this programme have “gone native” in their quest to catch the bad guys.
There’s Commander Eddy Caplan (very sullen, with a Corey Hart-like affection for his sunglasses), Lieutenant Roxanne Delgado (sullen and lank-haired, with a partner twice her age), Captain Walter Morlighem (sullen and bald, with a tranked-up wife) and Captain Theo Vachewski (a sullen, handsome, coke-snorting, leather-clad reincarnation of Jim Morrison risen from Père Lachaise). At one point he crawls out of bed, snorts some cocaine then says to his missus “I’m going to get a croissant” and chips off to commit some crime. It occurred to me that must be the French version of “off to see a man about a dog.” Finally, there’s also Commander Max Rossi, their squad leader, but he’s in trouble – merde profonde; the kind of bother which Tom Barnaby never got into.
This first episode opens with him interrogating a suspected murderer and rapist in a style that certainly wouldn’t meet with the approval of the Geneva Convention. ‘I’d like to see a glimmer of regret in your eyes,’ Max laments to the stripped, cuffed and sneering suspect, ‘but all I see is shit.’ Then he jams a pen in the suspect’s eye and – allegedly – shoves a steel ruler up his rectum. Internal Affairs (led by Roland Vogel, a dead ringer for a mid-30s Draco Malfoy suffering from acute constipation) are soon all over him like an outbreak of scrofula and have him locked up for police brutality and sexual deviancy.
Elsewhere, Eddy and Walter have donned balaclavas – the Braquo team wear masks as often as they do their badges, it seems – to visit a lawyer enjoying a relaxing spot of S&M. Having photographed him being whipped (‘Hit me harder, damn it!’) and extracted the location of a gangster, Serge Lemoine, they return to the cop shop: a huge warehouse in which their office (prophetically signposted ‘Danger of Death’) contains a well-stocked bar.
Inspector Morse would have loved it, but his brand of policing – i.e. in accordance with the law – wouldn’t really fit in here. ‘You’ve not been cops for a long time,’ Max’s wife tells Eddy. ‘You’ve been hiding behind your badge, trying to make sense of it all, but you’re worthless.’ In truth, that one time they actually tried to do some police work Lemoine is still released because they arrested him too late at night, which in France seems to be illegal – even when they try to do the right thing, they break the law. I could see that as a Daily Mail headline “Frogs release immigrant murderer because he was TIRED.”
Anyway half way through Max shoots himself in the face in a classic case of an eye for an eye. He wasn’t concerned about the fact he blinded a suspect but was worried his mates might call him a “pansy”. Perhaps the French haven’t dealt with gay rights. But maybe he topped himself because he knew his Kevin Spacey impression wasn’t as good as Eddie’s, I guess we will never know. The principal strands of this first series (it originally aired in France in 2009) are the team’s attempts to clear the name of their squad leader and bring Lemoine to justice, using as much hostility, intimidation and swearing as possible.
In short, Braquo is so terrifyingly thrilling in it’s flashes of violence that you’ll come away feeling almost guilty. Good news then, that the second series (currently in production) is being helmed by Jacques Audiard, who gave us some of the most squirm- inducing violence of recent years in A Prophet. Not that glamourising violence is cool (much), but it needs to be said that these guys make it look good. Admittedly, the bad hair and beards sported by most of the detectives makes them look like the kind of men whose corned beef aroma would overpower you on the bus. This is cops as rock stars, and it’s a lot of fun, even if does lead to an obvious downside; namely, it can get a bit too macho from time to time. No, that’s not always a bad thing, but when a cop being questioned by internal affairs asks his interrogator if locking up colleagues ‘makes you screw your wife better?’, only to be answered ‘No. I screw your wife better’, you’re getting too close to giggling for comfort.
Still, it’s in this gritty use of language, unflinching approach to violence and laissez-faire attitude to drug use and nudity (I counted three set of breasts and two bare men’s bums so Vive La France!) as much as its Who-put-the-film-stock-through-the-wash? visual style (the gloomy greyness of the scenes in the present contrast sharply with a the blurrily vibrant colours of a flashback to happier days within the SDPJ) that the similarities with Engrenages are apparent; but although these austere police anti-procedurals share a great deal in common (including a compulsiveness to see more – it’s almost as though Canal+ dramas contain a kind of cathode ray tube crack) there are enough different in focus and emphasis for them to sit happily – or rather, despondently – side-by-side.
Certainly, fans of Laure Berthaud – and of cop shows from all over the world – will find a great deal to enjoy. What you need to take away is this: Braquo is foreign, violent, cool and tough as a three day old baguette. Consume now.
Television Series: Braquo (S01E01- Max)
Release Date: October 2011
Actress: Sylvie Paupardin, Sophie Chamoux & Karole Rocher
Video Clip Credit: Celebvids
Sylvie Paupardin
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Sophie Chamoux
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Karole Rocher
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