A streetwise Paris policeman who takes kickbacks from the minor criminals on his beat to allow them to continue is assigned an idealistic new partner fresh from police academy. He sets out to corrupt him...
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Philippe Noiret plays a leather-jacketed corrupt cop who is the king of his little bailiwick in one of those corners of Paris tourists never see, gruffly administering rough justice while collecting bribes and sweeteners right and left. All is well until he's stuck with a rookie partner, a handsome straight arrow college graduate (Thierry Lhermitte) with ambitions to be police commissioner one day, who believes in arresting lawbreakers instead of chasing them into someone else's neighborhood, and who is definitely cramping Noiret's style and cutting into his income. What to do? Noiret and his longtime lover, an ex-hooker who owns a bar, decide that the best way to humanize this guy is to get him involved with an expensive new girlfriend who he can't afford on a cop's salary. A suitable working girl is found, the expected happens, and by the end Noiret is retired (after a short stretch in the can) and Lhermitte has inherited his place and his way of life.No surprises along the way, but a very enjoyable ride.
I purchased the DVD box set of Les Ripoux and Ripoux Contre Ripoux, its first sequel (there is now a third, Ripoux 3). To my horror, it only has the French language track, no English anything, to include subtitles. The had subtitles in the theater, so is it a French government plot that they cannot put them on DVD? Otherwise, I'll say that Les Ripoux is one of the best French comedies of all time, along with Grand blond avec une chaussure noire, "The Tall Blond Man With One Black Shoe", and its sequel. Which I would also like to have if I could get subtitles for them! (For those who have seen the Tom Hanks version of the latter, while funny, I found it to be too Americanized and think the original version was better.)
An excellent, funny and sad movie about being young, getting old, playing it straight and bending the rules. Cannot fail to engage: one of those movies the French do inimitably and best. DVD soon, please.
One of the comedies that are typically french, at the same time a farce and a study of characters.Certainly a well aging movie.
