This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

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

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This is a terrific film that I thoroughly enjoyed. Gerard D always terrific and is yet again here. I'm also a massive Daniel A fan now. Great if slightly familiar story but well told. It's an atmospheric and consistently exciting film. It's really well directed and full of great actors. Very highly recommended by me anyway. I don't know anyone else who has seen it so interesting to read other reactions of English speaking (re)viewers.The story isn't the easiest to follow especially when following all the subtitles but well worth the effort. It feels a bit like a Scorsese film circa 1980s. The locations are also fantastic. Actually I think I might watch again now.

After watching this you get the idea that the director or someone involved watched a few Tony Scott film's. This has that same fast paced/jump to scene/only scratch the surface typa drama/action. This one has very little depth. I'm no fan of Tony Scott films but this one seemed to borrow right from his template.I paid attention to the IMDb description and boy was it a mistake. By the first half of the film the criminal gang mentioned in the synopsis was already apprehended. What I was left with was another 50 minutes of drama that wasn't needed. Why they couldn't have just focused on the hatred of the cops amongst each other is beyond me. There are so many plot points and characters it gets confusing. These typa films try to make things flashy by throwing in some ultra violence and quick camera movements to distract you from the reality of what it is, one of a 100 films I've seen many times before.Since this is only a film I won't get too philosophical but can you imagine if anyone believed that things in Paris/France were this bad with the criminal element or even the Police department? I mean by this film you'd think that this was the most corrupt Police department on the planet.The casting was OK but that can't make up for what's actually here. If you wanna see a decent french film with this typa action but has actual depth try Le Deuxieme Souffle(1966) or La Femme Nikita. These are far superior than this one. For a general film about cops with this kinda action try Heat or Ronin. You can't miss with those.

It appears almost obligatory for a film such as 2004 French thriller, simply entitled by that of a number in "36", to be compared to Michael Mann's 1995 opus Heat; such comparisons seem synonymous with said film whenever a fresh feature of its ilk exploring the dynamics between friends and foes all existing and pot-boiling with one another within the same pan on the same hob comes along. Olivier Marchal's film, working from a screenplay he contributed to, is at once a fine police procedural movie but additionally a well played out crime drama and family ties serial which broods and comes together really nicely. The films are close to all-but stylistically similar, 36's poster greets us with that metallic blue hue rife within certain Heat sequences as two big-shot actors playing up to their off-screen persona's appear to be about to head into a one-on-one duel of some kind; projects in which they have both worked together resonating at the back of our minds as we head in ourselves.In the stylistic department, our lead actor, Daniel Auteuil, repeatedly cuts rather-a dash as a younger Pacino from around the mid-90s. Like Pacino's Heat character, he operates now and then with his criminally minded underworld contacts, whilst there is the sequence in which he must illustrate to his wife the dangers and difficulties of bringing his work life and work ethic into that of the domestic set up - somewhat reminiscent of a similar Pacino driven scene in said film. Both film's additionally see a dramatic, early armoured van heist act as the catalysts for the respective films. 36 is probably without the thematic substance which ran throughout Heat, of which pertained to the two male leads; here, Auteuil's police officer Léo Vrinks and Gérard Depardieu's police officer of similar rank Denis Klein sharing dissimilar relations in that there is certainly no love lost nor sense of mutual respect that the two men share in their respective lives or lifestyles. This doesn't detract from the film in any way, in fact Marchal's utilising of Mann's film as a source point before going down differing routes is to be constructively acknowledged.Crucially, the film paints a portrait of these men at odds with one another as numerous sub-plots and events occurring around them unfold and contribute in their own precise way to the plights of each man. In Vrinks, we have a police officer with connections of that the criminal underworld which goes against standard regulation, and yet is arguably one of the more upstanding characters in the film. When he exacts some agonising payback on a man in a secluded wooden area, whom is guilty of putting a local prostitute through a fair ordeal, we come to realise of his methods and that such activity has an overbearing sense of it being induced by gangsters, or is the sort of reaction gangsters might follow through with themselves. In Klein, the film provides us with an initially staunch and firmly straight-laced cop whom sticks to the straight and narrow in that sense but is a boozing, aggressive, self-centred man with a big build and out for an item as illegitimate as revenge.We begin in the present before flashing back to the events which lead up to Vrinks lying disgruntled and upset on a prison bed; the props and items in his cell suggesting the respect the man carries, that he is permitted such things or that there is a leniency inferred onto him hinting at minor offences or just sheer pity. When we flash back, we see Vrinks enjoying healthy company at a restaurant's bar with other police officers, during which one has his masculinity mocked for attempting to recite some poetry during this, a send off for a retiring official, establishing a certain bravado or macho set of characteristics for the police officers of Vrinks' department. The outgoing is the superintendent, his verbal establishing that his post is now there for the taking for somebody coming through such as Vrinks or Klein a proverbial prize looming at the end for what transpires; his additional confirmation that his desire to catch a gang of robbers whom we saw pillage that armoured van is strong, and sees him get-across a certain urgency to get this done so as to form a sort of swan-song.The item which drags both Klein and Vrinks together is in the form of a murdered informant Klein was rather fond of, a crime perpetrated by a Vrinks contact whom made sure Auteuil's cop was there to witness it; the fallout causing an immensely enjoyable power struggle within the confines of the police force as numerous supporting characters, such as wives and so forth, cause particularly harrowing events to entwine spawning all manner of strife.Essentially what 36 deals with, or at least feeds off of in order to induce dramatic effect, is that of corrupt police officials; an issue rife within a lot of contemporary French thrillers of both this ilk and of varying others, usually ordained by films from the factory of Luc Besson. Marchal's film is not another scuzzy excuse to exploit sensitive issues surrounding that of the problems France clearly has with political or authoritarian figures for sake of cheap, action imbued frills. Where Besson's writer/producer accredited films carry with them a belittling sense of introducing without really exploring, 36 encompasses police corruption as a subject apart of the film's process; symptomatically deconstructing those within and getting under the proverbial skin of such a caricature or authoritarian archetype whilst blending in genuine and authentic narrative elements in the process. The film is not the cynical, half-hearted show on how corrupt and narrow-minded police officers are, but in fact is a richer and more scholarly character study which is rarely, if ever, uninteresting.

Since The French know how to make top-notch crime and action flicks and since I saw several good reviews of this movie I had quite some expectations when I started to watch it on DVD. And indeed: '36, Quai des Orfèvres' started out suspenseful and interesting. But the story started spiralling out of control while the movie wasn't even halfway and eventually it literally lost the plot, making it a laughable failure. Director Olivier Marchal went out of his way to try and make Gerard Depardieu's dirty cop Denis Klein The Most Evil Character You've Ever Seen In A Movie, and in his attempt he sacrificed every inch of credibility of the whole story.SPOILER WARNING!: '36, Quai des Orfèvres' focuses on the struggle between good cop Leo Vrinks (Daniel Auteuil) and bad cop Denis Klein (Gerard Depardieu). When Klein messes up a big operation this leads to Vrinks' best friend getting killed. Vrinks wants to testify against Klein but Klein has got some dirt on Vrinks. Instead, Klein gets Vrinks sent off to jail for seven years and gets promoted to be commissioner even though no one likes him and all the cops threatened to resign if he'd get promoted. But... to show how Klein is not just a regular bad guy but a really really evil guy, sirector and screenplay writer Marchal thought it would be a great idea if Klein also kills off Vrinks's wife while he's in prison. His corrupt henchmen are witnessing this happen but no one says a thing.Look, I know police corruption happens everyday in every country in the world, but to try and tackle this subject by having a cop send another cop to jail and while he's there also killing his wife for no reason is a shocking example of blatantly stupid screen writing. Not even in Cambodia or a similar armpit-of-the-world would one get away with this so easily, let alone in France. This movie is insulting to the intelligence of it's audience.Great cinematography by Denis Ruden though! But aside from that, a turkey that needs to be avoided.