Parents' Guide to Squad 36

This police crime drama is too long and too messy. Based on a novel, Squad 36 tries to accomplish a lot in its over two-hour runtime, but the movie isn't better for it. The good is that the mystery running through the main plotline is intriguing, and even when it's revealed, many viewers will want to stick around to see how everything plays out. But many viewers might also be incredibly disappointed with how everything actually does play out. Another positive is that Victor Belmondo somewhat adequately makes Antoine watchable, a feat that should not go unnoticed, because on paper, there isn't much for Antoine to dig into in terms of character-building (and the same goes for the supporting cast). There's exactly one scene that shows him telling his girlfriend that his childhood involved growing up with an abusive father who hit him, his brother, and their mother, but aside from that, Antoine is a blank slate, upon which primarily brooding, vengeful, and determined looks take shape.

Yet while the core conspiracy is mildly intriguing enough, this kind of complexity also highlights some drawbacks. For one, supporting and supplemental characters can often seem to suddenly appear and be greatly involved, without any lead up, warning, or introduction. Very quickly, many different characters from different "teams" (the police, the other police, the other-other police, the gangsters, the other gangsters, the politicians, the civilians, etc.) show up to contribute to the story, and it can be difficult to keep track of who is who and who represents what "team." Also, for what it's worth, it'd be nice to see a movie like this where the "Antoine Cerda" and "Hanna Levasseur" characters are "bad" and the "Karim Mahmoudi" and "Sami Belkaim" characters are the heroes, instead of always seeing the opposite.