Ne réveillez pas un flic qui dort (1988) - film review

A disillusioned police inspector, Roger Scatti, leads an extreme right-wing cell “Fidélité Police”, which applies its own notion of justice to underworld crooks – usually in the form of summary execution.  Scatti’s colleague, Inspector Grindel, is initially indifferent to the cell’s activities but becomes incensed when they turn their fire against their fellow policemen.  As the contest becomes personal, Grindel exerts himself to bring the breakaway police group to account.

As the crime-thriller genre became increasingly less popular in France in the late 1980s, film directors were having to work harder to keep the genre fresh and appealing.  Unfortunately, all too often this meant following the example of Hollywood and resorting to shock tactics – such as extreme violence or sexual explicitness – as a substitute for content or artistic aesthetics.   Ne réveillez pas un flic qui dort typifies this trend and whilst the film may have had some appeal at the time of its release, a decade on it feels very dated and shallow.

On the plus side, the film does raise some genuine concerns about the worrying increase in vigilantism, motivated by extreme rightwing views (perhaps an inevitable backlash to the abolition of the death penalty in France in early 1980s).  Comparisons between the breakaway police group in this film and the Nazis are, however, unnecessary and are made in very bad taste.  More off-putting is the excess of violence in the film, which manages to be both sickeningly gratuitous and laughably unconvincing.   Far from saving the film policier, this kind of misguided juvenile tat would merely serve to hasten its demise.

Despite its obvious faults, the film does have some moments of great tension and drama – and this is mainly down to the contribution from Alain Delon’s co-star Michel Serrault.  As the singularly unpleasant villain of the piece, Serrault is worryingly believable, and the fact that he can still shine in such a mediocre work shows that he is an actor of no mean calibre.  By the time he made this film, Alain Delon’s acting career was on the decline, but his performance here – whilst not his best – is distinguished by a subtle, dogged humanity.  Ultimately, it is the quality of the acting – assisted by Raoul Coutard’s inventive cinematography – which just about manages to save the film.

Alain Delon, the film’s producer, dedicated this film to the memory of actor Jean Gabin, with whom he had worked on a number of earlier films.

© James Travers 2003

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