Pinot simple flic (1984)
Directed by Gérard Jugnot

Film Review

Gérard Jugnot made his directorial debut with this rather touching and, in parts, amusing film about an ordinary French policeman.  At the time, Jugnot was best known for his work as a comic actor, famously as a member of the popular comedy troupe L'équipe du Splendid.  With Pinot simple flic, Jugnot not only demonstrated his potential as a director, but also his ability to take on a more serious acting role.

Jugnot's Pinot is almost as recognisable as Tati's postman in Jour de fête, and wins our sympathy just as easily.  It certainly makes a welcome contrast to the more familiar (i.e. Belmondo/Delon) portrayal of law enforcers as tough, indestructible supermen who live in luxury apartments surrounded by beautiful young women.

The  film's pseudo-documentary style is equally unusual but doesn't quite work, probably because the film is centred so heavily around one character and works less well as a satire on police methods.  However, a good performance from Jugnot and some tongue-in-cheek comedy makes this a very respectable first film.

Film Synopsis

It's mostly routine work being a beat cop, even in Paris's pretty rough-round-the-edges thirteenth arrondissement.  Nearly all of Robert Pinot's days as an ordinary French cop involve patrolling the streets and dealing with minor incidents.  Not exactly Starsky and Hutch.  Today will be different, however.  This is the day when Pinot meets Marylou, a drug-addicted delinquent with a fiery spirit and evidently no future.  It all begins with Pinot being called to attend a minor fracas.  The adolescent manages to get away but she is picked up the next day.  Pinot finds it significant that, like him, she was born in Nanteuil.

From that first encounter, Pinot has feelings for the wild young woman that no cop has a right to feel for anyone he has arrested.  She is more a girl than a woman, and it is clear she has a troubled past behind her.  Is it Pinot's paternal instincts that compel him to take an interest in her and help her mend her ways?  As he soon discovers, this will not be easy.  Marylou is still madly in love with Tony, her pimp and dealer, and is unlikely to change her ways until Tony is brought to book.  Without delay, Pinot goes after Tony, knowing that if he can capture him he will be killing two birds with one stone...