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A cop drama-cum-serial-killer procedural that's as noir to the soul as its stygian lensing, Olivier Marchal's "MR 73" powerfully ties the bow on a triptych of dark crimers following the writer-director's debut, "Gangsters," and the award-winning "36 Quai des Orfevres." Headed by a socko performance from an encoring Daniel Auteuil, this time as a Marseilles inspector who's already halfway to hell, the film opened well in Gaul on March 12 and looks to have strong upscale legs offshore in the hands of the right distribs.

Pic has a similar structure to that of "Orfevres," with almost parallel character arcs slowly converging, though it's much more aggressive in look, with a high-contrast color palette of deep blacks, cold whites and not a lot of visual comfort in between. Tone is of the same heightened realism, with moments of pure theatricality, amplified by Denis Rouden's widescreen lensing and extreme color processing.

Thematically, the film is a neat fit with "Orfevres," with cops feuding as much among themselves as with crooks, and two central characters compromising themselves as they look for closure on past emotional traumas or mistakes. In the space of only three movies, Marchal confirms himself as a 21st-century heir to the late Jean-Pierre Melville.

Bedraggled, unshaven and with Mephistophelian orange-tinted glasses, veteran cop Louis Schneider (Auteuil, almost unrecognizable) is first seen drunkenly arguing with a bus driver and pulling a gun on the bus' occupants -- only to get arrested and carpeted by his superiors. A brilliant cop, he's been going to pieces ever since his wife and daughter were killed in a car accident.

A parallel plotline follows Charles Subra (Philippe Nahon), a psycho rapist and murderer who's spent more than half his life in prison and is now up for parole. Though he was sentenced to life, Subra now claims remorse for his past crimes and a desire to repent.

Justine (Olivia Bonamy), still traumatized from watching Subra slaughter her mom and dad 25 years earlier, is horrified he may be let go. In an act of pure confrontation, she writes to Subra in prison, calling him a "monster."

Meanwhile, Schneider, faced with an equally horrific series of serial rape/murders, is having difficulty holding his career together. Several plot triggers push the story into a different dimension as he and Justine finally meet, Subra reveals (to the audience only) he's still an unreconstructed madman, and Schneider bungles the arrest of a suspect (Swan Demarsan) in a maverick operation that goes fatally awry.

Pic, whose title refers to a make of French police handgun (Manurhin 73) used in the '70s and '80s prior to automatics, was inspired by a real-life 1981 crime when Marchal, as a 22-year-old rookie cop, witnessed the results of a family killing that made him decide to quit the force. Script's rich stew of casual police corruption, political finagling by superiors and quotidian brutalization on the job has a deeply personal feel, to an extent that the pic lacks the cool, clockwork inevitability that made "Orfevres" so memorable.

Film also lacks a comparably strong co-lead to compare with Gerard Depardieu, who faced off dramatically with Auteuil in the previous pic. Bonamy is OK as Justine but, like Melville, Marchal writes far better for men (or tough broads like Schneider's colleague Marie, played by Catherine Marchal) than he does for women.

Unlike "Orfevres," "MR 73" is very much a one-man show -- and Auteuil, growling his way through the role of Schneider, as he looks for a "second breath," is remarkable, with an attention to physical detail that's part and parcel of the whole movie's visual design. In retrospect, his character and the plotting don't make a heap of sense, but as pure cinema, "MR 73" is a potent roller-coaster ride through hell.

Subsidiary perfs are strong, with Nahon utterly believable as scumbag Subra; ditto thesps in other cop roles. Bruno Coulais' glacial score and Ambre Sansonetti's production design (the medieval prison, the tenebrous police HQ) are of a piece with the whole.
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Camera (color, widescreen), Denis Rouden; editor, Raphaele Urtin; music, Bruno Coulais; art director, Ambre Sansonetti; costume designer, Marie-Laure Lasson; sound (Dolby Digital), Pierre Mertens, Frederic Attal, Hubert Persat; visual effects supervisor, Stephane Bidault; stunt coordinator, Gregory Loffredo; assistant director, Ivan Fegyveres, Roxane Andreani Afar; casting, Catherine Chevron. Reviewed at Gaumont Champs Elysees Marignan 3, Paris, March 12, 2008. Running time: 123 MIN.

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