Best Cop Movie Since I Don't Know When

…is Le Petit Lieutenant, about life and hard times in a Paris detective squad. Forget that it’s Paris; forget that it’s Nathalie Baye, and that she looks like a cross between Helen Mirren and Barbra Streisand: this is about as plausible a film about what cop life is about as your are going to find. Some of the reviews complain that it’s too languid, but that is part of the point. A lot of cop work is mind-numbingly squalid and routine; that’s precisely why you are at risk of getting wrong-footed when events kick into a higher gear. It’s great to see a policiere that is not just another knockoff of Law & Order. And it’s great to see the French not trying to be international, but just trying to be themselves.