Finished off s4 of ludicrous French hardnut cop drama Braquo - increasingly bleak, pompous, silly and full of itself, but still Frenchy enough to make it an interesting contrast to things like The Shield. It's not nearly as good as The Shield, though, of course.
Absolutely larded, like a prize poulet, with crazy heavy weaponry, fine dining, corrupt politicos, hardboiled clichés, and shagging. Everyone is contractually obliged to sneer "Putain!!!" a few times per ep, preferably through a screen of cigarette smoke. (They're seriously committed to this last one: I had to laugh when even a super-hard-boiled female 'tec was having an existential dilemma when she found out she was pregnant, and still carried on chaining it.) Plot is silly and maybe a tiny, tiny bit stereotypical (white cops, black thugs, Turkish kingpins, native French safecrackers etc). Visually nothing special. But grimly compelling, up to a point.
And I finally realised that lead actor Jean-Huges Anglade, now looking like six-cent-kilometres of rough road to Albania, was once the scrawny young male lead in Betty Blue!
cos these sort of things can be bad but it actually works here. They even manage to make Robin cool. Robin ffs!
The two ladies in his life put in a great performance but special mention for the lugubrious hangman. I hope it was all considered quite scandalous as a film back then cos it is pretty close to the bone for a film of that era. Best murder is where he bumps the vicar up the list for having bored him.
