I watched Olivier Marchal's Department 36 and Tell No One a few years ago, and this movie clinches it. Watching Marchal's movies is like eating a soufflé' - pretty to look at, full of volume but devoid of substance. Being a former cop, he explores the sinister underbelly of police corruption and complacency as he did in Department 36, with the jaded anti-hero battling to survive despite the odds. But Auteil's character goes about his work with such incompetency as shown in his arrest of the serial killer that it's difficult to find any empathy for him, and you think his superiors have a point in treating him like the loser he is. The plot is a mishmash of themes poorly explored and laced with so many inconsistencies made even worse by the film's pretentious grandeur.

This one's just as bad as the director's previous movie.Full of fake gravitas, hollow posturing, stupid behaviour, self-important bleak pseudo-philosophizing, contrived storytelling and unbelievable character development. Not to mention the many piled-up clichés.A policeman's life may be hell on earth, but this pic offers just superficial and wound-up theatrics without any feeling for real-life matters of detection and police work, let alone sincere emotions.And as an entertaining psycho-thriller "Seven" style it doesn't work either.3 out of 10 dead owner's pets

Some movies are saved by their actors.To write that the movie is derivative is to state the obvious .It borrows from many of the American thrillers of the nineties ,the inmate (notably) is another reincarnation of Hannibal. Fortunately,no Clarice,but Justine ,daughter of his victims ,whose part is the most interesting of the whole movie.Her commitment to her grandpa is extraordinary and the scene of the mass for the dead rings true .Her relationship with the hero is more conventional but the viewer really needed some sunlight breaking out.A hero who has perhaps never deserved more to be called anti hero.It takes a lot of nerve ,a lot of genius and a lot of courage to play such a demeaning part of a fallen cop,who smells urine and alcohol ,with an haggard face who seems to have suffered his misfortunes without complain. Daniel Auteuil is ,much more than Depardieu,to the French cinema what Jean Gabin was half a century ago and besides he ages more gracefully .This part and that of Nicole Garcia's "L'Adversaire" are among his finest performances.The only thing that's lacking is a firm strong screenplay.This one is a bit desultory ,but who cares?Auteuil carries the movie on his shoulders ,with fine support by Olivia Bonamy.Well I stepped into an avalanche,it covered up my soul..... (L.C.)

Olivier Marchal kept his devotees waiting for four years after the great 36, Quai des Orfevres so clearly the main question is, was MR 73 worth the wait. The answer has to be yes. There are, inevitably, overtones from other movies; the detective searching for a serial killer whilst his own wife remains comatose is straight out of The First Deadly Sin in which Sinatra was the cop and Faye Dunaway the comatose wife. Elsewhere we are on newer ground. Where Sinatra's wife had a conventional illness Auteuil's was in a car crash for which he feels such guilt that he is burnt-out, washed-up and a booze hound. Marchal weaves two stories seamlessly - the current serial killer and the one awaiting release from prison, whilst his own wife, Catherine scores heavily as Auteuil's sympathetic boss. Try not to miss it