PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

jim-314 This movie starts out looking like a fairly conventional police procedural and ends up something much richer and subtler. It's full of nice little surprises that subvert our expectations of this sort of movie as we've come to know it from the Hollywood model. In fact, it's a wonderful example of how the American model can be molded into something more complicated. One example of that is the relationship between the "little lieutenant" and his attractive, middle-aged alcoholic supervisor. It's largely a filial-maternal relationship, but with subtle erotic undertones that keep us guessing at what might (or might not) develop between the two characters. In fact, little about the plot or the characters turn out the way you expect, and that's a fine thing. The movie also has a script written with exceptional skill and economy. We see only one scene between the lieutenant and his wife, and we hear a few additional comments about his marriage in other scenes, but from these brief bits we get a picture of a complex and problematic relationship that tells us as much as we need to know about the couple. While nothing about this movie is flashy, I haven't been able to get it out of my mind since I saw it earlier this week. It's thought provoking and I recommend it highly.

Greg Knapen OK, I have watched the original French version. But I can't imagine this being better with subtitles.All I have to say that this is the most boring movie I have seen in a long time. There are almost no redeeming qualities to this film. That's why I can't understand all the positive reviews. It might be realistic in a sense but some real stories are best left untold.I usually like slow paced movies as long as it serves the purpose of the movie. Tarkovsky's Solaris is extremely slow paced but it allows introspection and sets the mood of the film for example. But in this case, the movie is just filed with mindless dialog that manage to tell us little about the characters. None of which I could identify with or care for. In a lot of the scenes I found myself thinking: "When are they going to shut up"? The acting was pretty bad. Not in an overacting obvious kind of way. But It seems none of the actors cared about their characters and they all looked like they wanted to be elsewhere in most of the scenes. This might be due to the uninspired dialog they were given. Also the whole flow of the movie felt quite mechanical. Going from one scene to the next. It seems this movie was just written (badly) but never directed.This is one of the few films that I can say generated no emotional response from any of the scenes. No suspense, no fear, no anticipation, no sorrow, no introspection, no intellectual stimulation, no interest what so ever.A perfect example of what I call an anti-movie.

Christian Heynk The other day me and my friend cam out of the cinema. We had just seen VOLVER by Almodovar, and my friend made a very astute observation. She said: "In the beginning I had difficulties to get into this film. It is so uncommon to watch a film where there are so few cuts within the first ten minutes. Nowadays, when I go to the movies, I expect a car to be blown up or a man to be killed or an army to be set in motion within the first scenes". Le petit lieutenant had the same impact on me. Before seeing it, I thought: O.K., this is a cop film, a whodunit maybe, with a well conceived plot and lots of tension. Fortunately, I was mistaken. This film doesn't rush us into violent crime scenes and bold snide remarks by worn out and disillusioned cops. Instead it gives us an accurate account of everyday police work and it tells us how boring and dull police work can be. Due to these scenes of boredom the sequences where there is some real violence have a bigger impact on the viewer. Anyway, I just want to say, that I was completely thrilled by the realism of this film and I am staring to prefer European cinema to American cinema.

Kyle Giffin Extremely realistic. So much so that it's almost miserable to watch. We see a young and inexperienced police detective adjust to the aspects of his new job - from working through a pistol stoppage on the range, to knocking on doors looking for information about a murder, interviewing people who barely speak his language and trying to integrate with his new coworkers. We also see an experienced police veteran working through the problems that prolonged living in a stressful environment have produced as she returns to work after a two-year sabbatical. She takes the young Antoine with her throughout the course of a murder investigation, and the illustration of the dichotomy between them is nearly perfect. Avoided are the cliché kicking down of doors, Miami Vice / Hawaii 5-0-style firefights, Joe Friday detectives and "arch villains" that typically plague police films. The overall feeling that I had throughout the movie was monotony and despair as I identified with Antoine's feelings of separation, anxiety and of being overwhelmed. We see equally Commandant Vaudieu's sobriety struggle in scenes where her section is gathering at a bar after work for drinks while she orders a glass of mineral water. It's not a happy movie, it's not even entertaining, but it is realistic, extremely well played, and it is a moving, gritty drama that does for PJs what La Chambre des Officiers did for soldiers. It humanises them.