L.627 (1992)

L.627 is a French crime film first released in 1992, directed by Bertrand Tavernier.  The film stars Didier Bezace, Jean-Paul Comart, Charlotte Kady, Jean-Roger Milo and Nils Tavernier.  Our overall rating for this film is: good.


After a failed police raid, undercover policeman Lucien Marguet is reassigned to another department.  He joins a unit dedicated to tracking down and arresting drug dealers.  It is a job that is far from pleasant, and creates personal strains with his colleagues and his wife.

Most police films are geared around a strong central plot and often resort to extreme violence or improbable scenarios to create interest value.  Tavernier’s film L.627 is a police film, but it is nothing like that.  In this film, Tavernier deliberately sets out to create a film which reflects, as accurately as possible, the true day-to-day life of French policemen, albeit in one of the most dangerous and dramatic areas of police work.  To a great extent, L.627 resembles a docu-soap, but not the kind of sanitised nonsense which we are more familiar with.  We see brutality – in both the criminals and in the police.  We see betrayal, distrust, anger – and guilt.  This is no fiction.  This is real life.

The lack of a strong plot for such a lengthy film is something of a problem, though.  Far too often you have the feeling that you are standing around waiting for something to happen.  Of course, this is probably an accurate reflection of the job of a police investigator – a lot of hanging around, punctuated by sporadic, random bursts of intense activity.  This would certainly deter many people from watching this film.  However, as an uncompromisingly honest and unsensationalised depiction of life in the police service, the film has great merit and is worth watching, if only as an educational experience.

© James Travers 2001

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L627 is part of the Code de la santé publique ("Public Health Code") dealing with drugs, drug dealers and users, arrests and penalties. Screenwriter Michel Alexandre was a former police officer who had served in the drug squad. The politicians took a very hostile view of the film: Interior minister Paul Quiles ordered an investigation into Alexandre and his successor Charles Pasqua ordered it to be removed from an exhibition about films on police work (from "Contemporary French Cinema" by Guy Austin).
Mark Treuthardt (London)

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