Les Misérables(2020)

R
Rated R for language throughout, some disturbing/violent content, and sexual references
1h 44m

Release Date: Jan 10, 2020 | Limited

A cop from the provinces moves to Paris to join the Anti-Crime Brigade of Montfermeil, discovering an underworld where the tensions between the different groups mark the rhythm.

Official Website

Note: Distributed by Amazon Studios

Releases

Original Release | Jan 10, 2020

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Box Office Results

Results

Opening Weekend US & Canada:
$24,154
Total US & Canada:
$330,181
Total International
$54,276,191
Total Worldwide:
$54,606,372

Current Showtimes

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(U.S. Only)

Director & Top Cast

Ladj Ly
Director

Damien Bonnard
Stéphane

Alexis Manenti
Chris

Djebril Zonga
Gwada

Issa Perica
Issa

Al-Hassan Ly
Buzz

Steve Tientcheu

Le Maire

Almamy Kanouté

Salah

Nizar Ben Fatma

La Pince

Raymond Lopez

Zorro

Luciano Lopez

Luciano

Jaihson Lopez

Jaihson

Diego Lopez

Diego

Jeanne Balibar

Diego

Omar Soumare

Macha

Lucas Omiri

Slim

Abdelkader Hoggui

Amar

Alexandre Picot

Bob

Technical Specifications

Sound Mix: Dolby Digital

Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1

Other Details

Country of Origin: France

Language: French,Bambara

Summaries

Plot Summary

The film begins with images of the crowd in Paris celebrating the victory of the French team at the 2018 FIFA World Cup in the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, which had been perceived and celebrated in France as a moment of brotherhood between people of different social classes or ethnicities.Soon after, Stéphane Ruiz, a Police officer who recently moved to Paris and joined the anti-crime brigade, is assigned to work with squad leader Chris and brigadier Gwada on duty in the nearby city of Montfermeil. Chris often aggressively abuses his power on teenagers, with Gwada complacent with that abuse; while he feels unease, Stéphane doesn't interfere. Meanwhile, Issa, a known juvenile delinquent, steals Johnny, a lion cub, from a circus, causing its owner Zorro to go to a man known as "the Mayor" and threaten to return with firearms if Johnny is not returned. Chris and his squadron are tasked with finding and retrieving the cub.One of Issa's friends takes a picture of Issa with the cub and posts it on Instagram, leading Chris to find out that Issa is the culprit. They chase, capture and handcuff him, but he claims that the cub run away. Issa's friends then attack the trio, throwing objects at them to stop them from taking Issa in. When Issa tries to run away, Gwada, having accidentally teargassed himself during the chase, shoots him in the face with a flash-ball. Issa's friends scatter, but the squadron realize that they had been filmed by a drone, which escapes. While Stéphane wants to take a badly wounded Issa to a hospital, Chris and Gwada refuse, and instead the trio take him with them in their search of the drone's owner.The trio arrive at a local neighborhood contact of Chris, leaving Issa in their care and using information given to them by said contact to find Buzz, the teenager the drone belongs to, forcing him to flee before he can upload the video. Buzz, who still carries the drone's memory card, escapes the squadron and takes shelter with Salah, a restaurant owner and key member of the local Islamic community. Both the squadron and the mayor, having found out, arrive at Salah's restaurant. After a tense confrontation during which Chris attempts to illegally arrest Buzz, Ruiz convinces Salah to give him the memory card, claiming that Issa's shooting was just an accident.After recovering Issa and the cub (who happened to be spotted near them), the squadron takes the two to Zorro. Although they make Issa apologize, Zorro attempts to lock the two inside a cage with a fully grown lion, scaring Issa into wetting himself and almost making Stéphane shoot the lion, although he eventually lets him go. Deciding that Issa has learned his lesson, Chris drops him off and warns him not to tell anyone what happened, and to say that he slipped and fell if asked about his injury. In the evening, the characters involved in that day's event seemingly return to their normal lives, some with visible signs of distress and doubt; Issa, who had been told earlier that his father did not want him back home because of his behavior, sits alone on a ruined couch, traumatized. Later that night, Ruiz meets Gwada in a bar and tells him that he knows a flash-ball cannot be fired by accident, and that Gwada had therefore intentionally shot Issa. Gwada blames his stress and the children for overwhelming him, and Stéphane, while unconvinced, leaves Gwada with the card, telling him to "do what you gotta do."The next day, the squadron, while on patrol, get attacked by a small group led by Issa. They chase them, falling into Issa's trap and ending up assaulted by a much larger group of teenagers, leaving them trapped from all sides in a stairwell and fighting for their lives. Chris is wounded when a bottle breaks on his face, and the backup car Stéphane radios for gets immediately destroyed by the teenagers, forcing the backup policemen to flee. They also attack the mayor's office and end up clubbing him and throwing him down a set of stairs. Stéphane pounds on the nearest door begging for help, which, incidentally, is the door to Buzz's apartment; however, Buzz further locks the door. Issa lights a molotov cocktail and prepares to finish the squadron off with it, leading Stéphane to point his gun at him and warn him not to; the screen fades to black as both Issa and Stéphane try to decide what to do next, and a quote from Victor Hugo' Les Misérables appear: "Remember this, my friends: there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators."

Storyline

Assigned to work alongside unethical police veterans Chris (Alexis Manenti) and Gwada (Djebril Zonga) in Paris' Anti-Crime Brigade, Brigadier Stéphane Ruiz (Damien Bonnard) - a recent transplant to the working-class suburb of Montfermeil, where Victor Hugo wrote his famous novel Les Misérables - struggles to establish a working relationship with influential community leaders while attempting to maintain some semblance of peace between his disreputable team and the citizens of the local housing projects. When what should be a simple arrest goes tragically awry, the three officers must individually reconcile with the aftermath of their actions while angling to keep the neighborhood from retaliating with mob violence. Beginning as a Cesar-winning short film, the film was inspired by the 2005 riots in Paris. It was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Jury Prize (in a tie with BACURAU) and was selected as France's entry for Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards. — Mae Moreno