This is one of Marcel Carné's last films, and is a gem. And not just because Jacques Brel (as Le Juge d'instruction) and dear Boby Lapointe (as Louis Casso) are in it. An innocent man is murdered here by the cops in the cop station, there are witnesses (one being a minor cop himself), two others in the next door cell who hear the terrible sounds of torture, and as it turns out there was also a prostitute who heard not an interrogation but a murder.
Bernard the judge goes through all the procedures to get the three murderous cops convicted, but he's working against a system which is rigged against justice, which cheats in every way it can, intimidates witnesses into silence and lying, and distorts the truth as much as possible: in fact, as Orwell said, lies are truth and vice versa. If this film doesn't turn you against the corruption of the status quo there's no hope for you.
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