Movie Review: Le Petit Lieutenant

I really wanted to like this movie, especially since I figured its premise--guns! cops! murder!--would get hubby to admit that for once, I had added a good film to our NetFlix queue. Even if it did have subtitles.

Alas, my movie-picking abilities failed me. While well-acted, Le Petit Lieutenant suffers from glacial pacing and a plot twist halfway through that had both of us tilting our heads and saying "Wuuuhhh-at?" And not in a good way.

One reason to see this movie is for Nathalie Baye's performance, which stayed with me for days. Baye can say more with one glance than most American actresses can say in a two-hour movie. She was great in An Affair of Love, (or, in the original French, the way more interesting Une liaison pornographique).

So rent Le Petit Lieutenant to watch Baye, one of the great French actresses. Just don't expect "CSI" (despite one very grisly morgue scene) or "Law & Order." And if you can explain the end to me, I'd really appreciate it.

(Photo courtesy of ladconcord)