Les Ripoux (1984)
Directed by Claude Zidi

Film Review

This comedy thriller, a no-holds barred satire on police corruption, was a major success for director Claude Zidi.   The film won no less than three Césars in 1985 (for best film, best director and best editing) and it remains one of his best films, occupying a totally different league to his higher profile but comparatively trivial comic efforts such as Astérix et Obélix contre Cesar.

Philippe Noiret is the perfect choice for the part of the laid back cop who is so corrupt that he scarcely notices how corrupt he has become (casually receiving back-handers and letting suspected criminals off the hook almost as if he was morally obliged to).  It is the kind of role which Noiret plays best and in which, sadly, the actor has become irreversibly typecast.  Alongside this master of black comedy, Thierry Lhermitte appears rather bland, although he works rather well as the unlikeable stooge to Noiret's amiable "ripou" (which is French back-slang for "rotten one").

What makes this a particularly entertaining film is the way in which it satirises not just the French police system (which everyone knows was rife with corruption at the time) but also the French crime-thriller genre. The icon of the policier genre in the early to mid 1980s was Jean-Paul Belmondo, who invariably ended up playing a police inspector who used unorthodox (sometimes criminal) methods to achieve results.  Les Ripoux goes one step further and makes the police into loveable villains who behave in the same complacent way as Belmondo (with Lhermitte even wearing an exact copy of Belmondo's outfit from Le Marginal of 1983).

Even to those who are not familiar with the genre, there is a great deal to like in this film.  In additional to the conventional thriller ending (which naturally involves a high-speed car chase and shoot out in the neon-lit streets of Paris), the comedy is well constructed - and very tongue in cheek - managing to avoid the cheap farce of some of Zidi's lesser films.

Film Synopsis

Inspector René Boirond has been policing a crime-ridden neighbourhood of Paris for over twenty years.  In that time, he has learned that the best way to do his job is to turn a blind eye to most of the petty criminality that surrounds him and adopt a live and let live approach to dealing with crooks, pimps and other lowlife.  Of course, the backhanders he receives by way of recompense is always a welcome supplement to his meagre salary.  René's mutually advantageous system is suddenly placed in jeopardy when François Lesbuche, a young and enthusiastic cop straight out of police school, is assigned to work with him.

An idealist who has yet to appreciate the difficulties of modern policing, François has none of his superior's laissez-faire tolerance and instead intends enforcing the law wherever and whenever he can.  For René, this spells disaster.  The last thing he wants is to put at risk the friendly relations it has taken him so long to establish with the district's criminal fraternity.  With the help of Simone, an ageing hooker, and Natacha, a seductive call girl, the wily inspector sets out to make a dishonest cop of François. 

The transformation turns out to be more spectacular than René had hoped.  Not only does François look different, his whole behaviour and moral outlook have changed, and he is soon trying to rope his partner into a criminal exploit that René would once have considered too risky, even for a corrupt cop like him.  If the exploit comes off successfully, René and François will be able to give up their jobs and live in comfortable retirement for the rest of their lives.  If it fails, they could both end up in prison.  René decides the risk is worth taking...