Featured Audience Ratings

• Anthony L

  
  Polisse is the biggest pile of contrived nonsense since Paul Haggis's Crash. So Actress/Director/Researcher/Egotist Maïwenn spent nearly a year with Paris's Child Protection Unit, following the Officers in their daily routines both at work and at play. She is successful in… More
  Polisse is the biggest pile of contrived nonsense since Paul Haggis's Crash. So Actress/Director/Researcher/Egotist Maïwenn spent nearly a year with Paris's Child Protection Unit, following the Officers in their daily routines both at work and at play. She is successful in showing some of the horrific issues they have to deal with, the sad and heartbreaking tales they have to tell and how this effects and can ultimately destroy their own lives and the way they interact with people on a social level. Some of the scenes are heartbreakingly real and others are unashamedly graphic. The viewer is not stupid, we get it, this film often goes too far just for the sake of it - when the story isn't making much sense director Maïwenn shoves something else unpleasant down your throat to make up for it. The direction and story are badly handled, the DVD cover says 'Like a season of The Wire packed into just one film' which I'm not sure was intended to be a compliment when quoted. The Paedophiles are cliched and two dimensional, you can see them coming a mile off. The way the Child Protection Unit is portrayed is shockingly offensive. The Officers are shown to be a rowdy bunch of rude, unorganised, arrogant and heavy drinking hooligans with a total lack of self control, wannabe pseudo-intellectuals at best. If she's trying to point out that it is a department that isn't working there are other ways to go about it but I don't think she is. In the last scene they talk about opening a 'Internet Paedophile' department, like that's a new thing in 2011. She belittles these people she has supposedly studied and makes a mockery of them and their work. The fact she just had to give herself a pointless starring role in the film just goes to show you how much she really cares about the subject and the real people involved. Offensive and contrived, all to forward her own career, isn't banging Luc Besson enough? One star for the Child actors who were great.

• c0up  

  
  'Polisse'. Unflinching and raw in capturing the intimacy, camaraderie and harrowing nature of a Child Protection Unit's daily lives.

• 5 o´clock coffee .

  
  "Polisse" synopsis is so dull and poor that I am glad I had not read it before watching the movie. The "journalist covering police assigned to a juvenile division that enters an affair with one of her subjects" is only part of a wider and more complex quilt of… More
  "Polisse" synopsis is so dull and poor that I am glad I had not read it before watching the movie. The "journalist covering police assigned to a juvenile division that enters an affair with one of her subjects" is only part of a wider and more complex quilt of characters and interesting stories. Maïwenn brings up the dirty and dark side of Paris with the help of an excellent team of child actors - Malonn Lévana, the lovely little girl of "Tomboy" (where she plays the sister of the leading character) is someone to keep an eye on - and the best known actors of the French cinema of today: Marina Foïs, Sandrine Kiberlain, Nicolas Duvauchelle, Frédéric Pierrot, Karin Viard, Louis-Do de Lencquesaing, Alice de Lencquesaing (L'heure d'été, Le père de mes enfants), Jérémie Elkaïm (La guerre est déclarée), Karole Rocher, and others. This team of stars, however, can be a double-edged sword: at the same time it calls the attention and arouses curiosity, it can also hinder the identification with the characters and/or concentration. It was just me, perhaps, but every time a known face appeared on the screen, my mind would unplug and try to remember in which movie I had seen that actor. Despite the great cast and some memorable moments, "Polisse" is average. It looks like a police tv drama show, both in format and melodrama, but a very good one it´s true. If made for tv, all the crucial subjects raised by Maïwenn - such as pedophilia, social welfare, immigration, violence - could be better placed and developed, taking in mind the way she chose to portray them. Choices, by the way, seem to be carefully taken. Melissa ´s "ugly panties" being childlike and having the saying "spank me" that she didn´t know what means may work as an alert on how we collaborate with these sexual "fair tale" fantasies. The saying in English (spank me) may also be a criticism on our contemporary times where we usually follow global and standardized models/ideas, sometimes without really knowing or thinking about what they mean, what can be also seen, let´s say, in the episode of the "telephone teenager girl". "But it was a smartphone". Although I don't think "Polisse" is that good, Maïwenn definitely got my attention. I liked a lot her character Melissa and how it develops and grow as the story unfolds; I was delighted with the funny discussion over the changes in the French language (on how we are killing our language); and the final scene really impressed me - the ending can be melodramatic as said Peter Bradshaw, but definitely not unconvincing. That said, I will sure check Maïwenn's previous movies and will be waiting for more.

• Carlos M

  
  Through a documental tone using a handheld camera, this realistic drama depicts the everyday life of the policemen in the division of crimes against children in Paris. A fascinating collection of isolated situations showing their work and the relationship between them.

• Linda K

  
  Without a doubt, it is a very difficult film to watch. The ensemble cast was absolutely incredible and hearfelt, especially the children, that we forget that they are actors. By studying and following the police in the juvenile division for the film, director and actor Maiwenn… More
  Without a doubt, it is a very difficult film to watch. The ensemble cast was absolutely incredible and hearfelt, especially the children, that we forget that they are actors. By studying and following the police in the juvenile division for the film, director and actor Maiwenn depicted a very touching and raw subject matter which cannot be represented better.