Film recommendation: Case 137, a gripping police brutality drama
Dominik Moll’s tense film is set during the gilets jaunes protests and centres on a police brutality investigation
Léa Drucker excels as an under-pressure police internal affairs investigator
Fanny de Gouville/Modds
Case 137
Director: Dominik Moll
Starring Léa Drucker, Jonathan Turnbull, Mathilde Roehrich
Franco-German director Dominik Moll’s last film, 2022’s The Night of the 12th, was critically lauded and claimed numerous awards, including Best Film and Best Director at the 48th César Awards a year later. It was a tense and tragic tale of a murdered girl in a small town in the Alps, with police procedure at its heart.
Moll’s follow-up is set amid the gilets jaunes protests in 2018 and focuses on an investigation into police brutality. It was inspired by real-life incidents involving the use of ‘flash-ball’ guns – which fire rubber bullets – by riot police.
A teenager has been badly injured by a bullet, and Stéphanie (the excellent Léa Drucker), in her role as an Internal Affairs officer, must investigate by painstakingly combing through CCTV and smartphone footage. The procedural elements unfold with slow precision, making the viewer party to the investigation.
But it is the social issues surrounding the case, and the moral pressure placed upon Stéphanie, that lend the film its gravitas. On one side, she is up against corruption, stonewalled by police colleagues who themselves are under immense strain to maintain public safety whilst remaining within the law; while on the other, she is driven by a sense of justice for the teenager. Can she find the culprit without bending procedure and her own conscientiousness?
This excellent drama is available to stream now on Apple TV and Prime.
Also out: Fiasco, now on Netflix.
Pierre Niney plays an out-of-his-depth filmmaker in a mockumentary comedy.
