John Williams The film starts out as an interesting pseudo-documentary about the French Child Protection Services, and it seems sort of like The Office. Unfortunately the film then drags on for another 90 minutes as it jumps from vignette to vignette (abused child, abandoned child, etc) while you get to see a massively dysfunctional arm of the police department yell and function incoherently. If I was their boss, I would've fired about half of the people in that office long before movie ended.The drama is hugely overblown in the film, but unfortunately it is not funny in any scene, even when the director tries to make it so, as when the -entire department- starts making fun of a girl who was sexually abused after her cell phone was stolen. Other ridiculous scenes (although there are so many): • Fred taking off the glasses of the (unnamed?) weirdo photographer, then letting her hair down? It's like out of some 1980s teen comedy, but done here to supremely awkward effects.• The CPS people abusing a girl who just gave a stillborn (or possibly aborted) baby a few months after being raped.• So, so, so many unexplained character interactions, e.g. between the weirdo photographer and her baby daddy. Why is he taking care of their children? Why does he seem like a child molester himself, but then this plot is never, ever developed at all? Why is she hiding from his gaze when she leaves her apartment, across the street? None of this is even remotely explained. The photographer's romance with the guy on the squad is incredibly overdone and unnecessary.• Why did they think it was a good idea to bring along someone with horrible anxiety issues to an undercover gem smuggling operation? No one was like "this girl who freaks out by saying 'hello' should probably not be playing a central role in the operation"?There are many more. I don't seem to be nitpicky, I can enjoy movies with some plot holes, but this film is an entire series of partially explained character interactions. It's the film equivalent of Lost. Stop introducing character development if you're not going anywhere with it, good lord. I get that nothing is really 'resolved' when you're working with Child Protection Services, but even that point is not gotten across very well.I've seen worse films, but would definitely not recommend this to anyone. I did not previously know that Luc Besson was a pedophile and molested this film's director when she was a girl, but it's also unfortunate that she didn't make a better story about child abuse, given her own history. C'est la vie.

turners-1 This film is the biggest heap of rubbish I have seen in years - nothing but a vanity project for the director. If people are left thinking that this is how a CPU would behave in any western European country then the director should hang her head in shame. Firstly the plot is a mess -events happen without any seeming rhyme of reason, all in the midst of a lot of shouting and flouncing by the CPU staff, none of which is in the least bit believable (at the start of the film a banner flashes up that 'these cases are based on real cases'). The overacting is appalling. The scene in the shopping mall is a joke, people standing round talking into walkie-talkies when they are supposed to be keeping a low profile in order to arrest a group of jewel smugglers. Secondly it is impossible to care about any of the characters, or what happens to them, with the possible exception of Ballou. All the while we get loving shots of the director (a very comely wench it must be admitted) looking gorgeous and simpering.I watched the film with a social worker who couldn't stop laughing at how ludicrous the whole film was, and I could not but help agree. As for the ending.....There is a major film to be made about the work of CPUs, but this definitely isn't it.

need_move This could have a been a very good drama based on a very serious subject. There are some interesting and powerful moments but overall the bad acting and poor script made me wonder what the hell I was watching and how the hell could I have been made to believe this film was worth it. When I looked it up post-hoc and found who the director was it all started to make sense. Maïwen, a mildly annoying character running around with her 10-euro camera taking pictures of everything and pretending to be a professional photographer is also the director of this film! Maïwenn - here's a piece of advice for you: a jack-of-all trades is a master of none. You should have stuck to your wonderful acting career and leave this theme alone! This film should be shown in art schools as an example of how NOT to make films.

cblittle What an excellent film! Full of good dialogue that feels real and down to earth it was not surprising to hear Maiwenn say (at the Sydney Film Festival Q&A) she had spent time with the real CPU. The reality of the emotions and the truthfulness of the situations this team faced was evident and really made the difference to this film. What stops the review getting full marks is the films tendency to let some of the less interesting scenes play for too long. Oddly it's also the love story she included to make the film seem less bleak and Maiwenn's own character that become unnecessary and make the movie overburdened and run a little too long. The cast is absolutely fantastic and engaging. Their relationships heartfelt and natural; you would think they had been playing this together for years. This is a movie of the tougher, grimy side of a city. It presents the human behaviours we shudder to believe exist. And yet, handled so superbly, you will not feel wrung out or overwhelmed. It's a terrific movie that will have you talking for a long time.