Contre-enquête (2007)
Directed by Franck Mancuso

Film Review

Immediately after driving French audiences and critics into a frenzy of admiration with his flamboyant comedy portrayals - in such hit films as Brice de Nice (2005) and OSS 117: Le Caire nid d'espions (2006) - Jean Dujardin comes down to earth with an almighty thud in this bleak realist crime drama and shows that he can do far more than make us laugh.  The film itself is pretty mediocre, a run-of-the-mill revenge thriller that looks as if it was made for the small screen and offers little in the way of character depth and narrative shocks.  The presence of Dujardin, now France's biggest star actor, and Laurent Lucas, another superlative screen actor, beloved by auteur filmmakers, does however lift the film and gives it far more bite than it perhaps merits.

Contre-enquête is the first film to be directed by Franck Mancuso, a former French police chief who had previously worked as a script consultant on the long-running TV series Commissaire Moulin and Olivier Marchal's acclaimed 2004 policier 36 Quai des Orfèvres.  Mancuso draws on his hard earned professional experience (which includes dealing with the most heinous of crimes, child rape and murder) to give the film a tough, realist edge, although this is sadly undermined by his superficial screenplay which relies far too much on implausible plot contrivance.  Mancuso's script (a loose adaptation of a short story by Lawrence Block) lacks credibility at crucial moments (notably the courtroom scenes and the dramatic ending), and it is a testament to the skill of his actors that the shortcomings in the screenwriting are so effectively masked.

Dujardin is superb as the respectable career cop who is confronted with his worst nightmare and thereafter becomes consumed by an obsessive quest for justice.  The moral ambiguity of Dujardin's character is cleverly matched by that of his cunning nemesis, an equally complex individual played with immense subtlety by Laurent Lucas.  Each actor succeeds in bringing a fractured humanity and chilling mystique to his portrayal, and at times it is unclear which of them is more deserving of our sympathy.  Whilst most of the plot runs on fairly predictable lines, the final plot twist does come as something of a surprise, not because it is necessarily far-fetched but because it shows how badly we have misjudged Dujardin's character, or rather the extent of his personal torment.  Contre-enquête is not likely to win many awards for originality and at times its lack of subtlety is laughable, but despite this it manages to hold our attention and ultimately delivers a study in the black art of manipulation that is genuinely disturbing.

Film Synopsis

Richard Malinowski is a hard-nosed police chief who thinks he has become inured to violence.  Nothing he has experienced in his career can prepare him for the day when his nine-year-old daughter is raped and killed.  A fierce enquiry led by his colleagues soon results in the arrest of a suspect, Daniel Eckmann.  The evidence against Eckmann is overwhelming and he is sent to prison for thirty years.  But Eckmann insists he is innocent and writes a letter to Malinowski stating as much.  Having taken consolation from the fact that his daughter's killer is behind bars, Malinowski begins to have second thoughts.  What if Eckmann is innocent and the killer is still at large? Malinowski seems to have no choice but to begin his own investigation...