3 out of 5

Created By: Olivier Marchal

Covers through season 2

“France’s Shield.”  Yup.  ‘Braquo’ is about a group of four dirty cops – each dirty on relative levels, with drug addict Theo the worst, captain Eddy and lieutenant Walter the middleground, and lieutenant Rox wavering between dedication to her group and attempted “right” decisions.  Right from the start our noses are rubbed in the mire, with an interrogation sequence full of plenty of abuse and harsh language; ‘Braquo’ thus can’t be accused of misleading its audience, but this also means that if you’re not okay with it from the start, you might as well give up.

While there is a nice organic flow over the two seasons all stemming from something in this initial sequence, it’s still difficult to get over that the plot is motivated by our leads taking revenge for a rather vile seeming character.  Max, the interrogating officer, commits suicide after being accused of committing inhumane atrocities during the interrogation.  While the accusations are false, and we’re told that the criminal being questioned is the worse of the worse, we can’t deny that we saw Max wailing away on this dude.  When this kind of stuff plays out in ‘Engrenages,’ you understand that its a rough fucking legal system, but you’re on the side of these cops.  ‘Braquo’ doesn’t have time to sympathize these characters, so it just seems like everyone is shitty to one another.  The precinct is in an old garage or something, and all of the police sets have this sparse, dungeon-esque look to them.  I don’t doubt its a realistic presentation for the “special squad” of which Eddy and team are a part, but it’s more indication of the complete lack of sunshine in the series.

So anyway, a lot of swearing and drugs later and its easy to get caught up in Braquo’s non-stop: every victory just opens up to one more person who’s owed a favor, or it creates another wrinkle for another problem.  Season 2 is an interesting mish-mash – it trades the gritty grounding of season 1 for an 80s movie set of villains, but Caplan is at least trying to make amends for his actions, mostly, so it’s a bit easier to be invested in characters and not just the momentum.

But overall, there’s not really anything too defining about this if you’ve watched other “street” procedurals.  Sure, its French, and the harshness of the characters and their actions throttles you into a weird sensory overkill that makes speedballing the show acceptable, but besides the rather great, understated acting by lead Jean-Hugues Anglade (Eddy), I can’t tell you to set aside your weekly viewing for ‘Braquo.’  However, by the same token, if grit’s tolerable in your selection and the show happens to be on, there’s no harm in getting swept up in its energy.