Who says a cop story can’t be politically relevant? Dominik Moll’s suspenseful and distressing Case 137 takes all that is good about police procedurals – their bureaucratic precision in collecting evidence, their clever piecing together of meaning from blood stains and bullet casings, the inevitable identification and capture of the guilty in the end – and makes it better with layer upon layer of unemphatic realism. The result is a highly enjoyable watch which also asks tough questions about police accountability and the cost to society of shielding violent cops from punishment.
The story written by Moll and Gilles Marchand is based on a terrible incident that happened in Paris during one of the early “Yellow Vests” demonstrations in December 2018. This grass-roots movement saw tens of thousands of working class and middle class protesters take to the streets in mass demonstrations over the high cost of living and France’s unequal tax burden. On this particular day, the Girard family (mother, father, son, daughter and daughter’s boyfriend) drive down from the town of Saint-Dizier to march in their first protest ever. Things start out almost as a sightseeing lark, but soon chaos descends along with tear gas and Guillaume, the son, is hit in the head by a bullet from a riot gun.
This drama is told indirectly, after the fact, during an internal investigation by the Paris police. Running the team is Stéphanie (played with realistic grit by the fine Léa Drucker from Custody and Close), a single mom separated from her ex who is in the narcotics squad. Investigating fellow officers is a thankless job, and even the union lets her know they stand united behind whoever might have fired the shot, whatever the circumstances may be.
Her mounting stress, though dissimulated by the self-controlled Stéphanie, is woven into the investigation itself, a mile-a-minute affair as edited by Laurent Rouan. It begins when Guillaume’s distraught mother files a complaint against an unknown cop. The youth is in the hospital with a cracked skull and is unable to speak. Stéphanie’s three-officer team questions other family members as witnesses, who make it clear the boy was shot by a squad of five men wearing balaclavas to cover their faces. The team exchange glances: special forces were called out that day by a panicked government. In rapid succession they interrogate the haughty, uncooperative heads of various special police groups (there were a surprising lot of them at the demonstration and they were all armed). CCTV footage from nearby streets is examined. The suspects are narrowed down; names are put on blurred faces. But who fired the shot? The inquiry stalls.
It’s hard to look away from the rapid-fire action, familiar as it is from numberless cop shows, movies and novels. At one point an apparently harmless coincidence is discovered: Saint-Dizier, where the Girards’ live, is Stéphanie’s hometown, and it will come back to haunt her.
The well-cast Drucker has a laid-back, quiet competence that recalls Frances McDormand in her backwoods police roles. She inspires real sympathy as she struggles to raise her son, have a social life, accept the fact that her ex is seeing another woman (also a cop), and submissively obey the instructions of her superiors — while finding ways around them. In a tender moment, she rescues a trapped kitten and discovers the calming power of cat videos on the internet.
Things get back on track when the team unearths a hotel maid who has seen the crime, in another riveting performance from Guslagie Malanda, the unforgettable mother on trial for killing her baby in Alice Diop’s harrowing legal drama Saint Omer. Her sorrowful face and disbelief in the justice system triggers Stéphanie’s pity, but she needs the woman as a witness too badly to let her off the hook.
The film loses nothing of its ferocious rhythm in its final scenes as the investigators bring the case to a close, but not surprisingly, that is not the end of the story. In a shocking coda, the real-life victim describes the price he has paid for protesting non-violently that day. As one character cynically comments on demonstrations, “Billions watch them and the world is as violent as always.”
Director: Dominik Moll
Screenplay: Dominik Moll, Gilles Marchand
Cast: Léa Drucker, Mathilde Roehrich, Jonathan Turnbull, Guslagie Malanda, Stanislas Merhar, Sandra Colombo, Valentin Campagne, Mathilde Riu, Come Peronnet, Solan Machado-Graner, Teéo Costa-Marini, Théo Navarro Mussy
Cinematography: Patrick Ghiringhelli
Editing: Laurent Rouan
Production design: Emmanuelle Duplay
Music: Olivier Marguerit
Sound: Francois Maurel, Rym Debbarh-Mounir, Nathalie Vidal
Production companies: Haut et Court
World Sales: Charades
Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Competition)
In French
115 minutes
