2025's Squad 36 is like a form of mild noir. I mean it's a little too modern day to take place in the 1950s but it does have the gumption to be a film about investigations into the conch of professional murders. Its lead (Victor Belmondo as Antoine Cerda) wanders "36's" French landscape like he's Columbo and/or Philip Marlowe, asking questions with his mediocre-dubbed voice, his near-wooden acting, and his surprisingly searing screen presence. Belmondo, well he appears and shifts like a younger version of a droopy-eyed former Beatle (what you say?). He's in nearly every frame for better or worse.
So yeah, let's get back to the movie as a whole shall we. Squad 36 is a bit of a slog, a flick that's 30 minutes longer than it should have been. Lots of characters, a few subplots, a lot of slickness. Yeah "36" probably needed a different editor to wade through all this 2-hour-plus hodgepodge. But hey, at least Squad 36's director (Oliver Marchal) is going for a thinking man's thriller as opposed to some mindless actioner starring Thomas Jane and former paycheck monger Bruce Willis (for example). "36", yup it's about a scrappy cop who goes rogue, trying to inspect the deaths of his workmates through off-duty, detective toil.
All in all, Squad 36 has got streamlined direction, a nice techno soundtrack, some adequate Paris locales, and a certain level of atmospherics. The problem is it's a little too disjointed for its own good. I mean you go back to the pic's elongated running time (124 minutes) and think, "is this some sort of rough cut with a tacked on ending just for kicks and giggles?" Add some unknown troupers with unsung names (Juliette Dol, Yvan Attal), some random shootout clips that are on and off the screen faster than a speeding bullet (pun intended) and you have a well-intention-ed yet mixed review from me. Odd "squad".
Written by Jesse Burleson
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