Squad 36

I suspect Olivier Marchal drinks his coffee blacker than a coal mine and hasn't seen a sunrise that wasn't filtered through a haze of cigarette smoke. The man has spent the better part of two decades turning the "Polar"—that gritty, quintessentially French brand of police thriller—into a personal altar of gloom. With Squad 36, he’s back at the Quai des Orfèvres, or at least the ghost of it, delivering a film that feels like a heavy-duty leather jacket in a world of spandex superhero suits.

I watched this on a Tuesday night while my radiator was making a rhythmic clanking sound that strangely synced up with the industrial thrum of the score. It was the perfect atmosphere for a movie where the sun feels like a distant rumor.

The Shadow of the 36

If you’ve followed Marchal’s career from 36 Quai des Orfèvres to Rogue City, you know the drill: the cops are tired, the criminals are philosophical, and everyone is roughly three bad decisions away from a prison cell. Squad 36 doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it certainly applies a fresh coat of obsidian paint. The story centers on Antoine Cerda, played by Victor Belmondo with a weary, hollow-eyed intensity that suggests he skipped the "charming grandson" phase of his career and went straight to "haunted veteran."

Cerda gets booted from his elite unit—standard procedure for a Marchal hero—and ends up on a rogue mission when his former teammates start turning up dead. It’s a classic setup, but it works because of the sheer weight of the production. The film carries a 2025 sheen, benefit of Gaumont’s high-end polish, yet it feels stubbornly analog. In an era of streaming-first content that often looks like it was lit by a fluorescent office bulb, Denis Rouden’s cinematography is a relief. He treats the Parisian underworld like a gothic cathedral, all deep blues and amber streetlights that make the city look both beautiful and predatory.

A Dynasty of Grit

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: the chin. Victor Belmondo carries one of the most famous last names in cinema history, and while his grandfather Jean-Paul Belmondo was the king of the Gallic swagger, Victor is carving out a niche in Gallic misery. He’s excellent here. There’s a scene early on where he’s just sitting in a car, watching a rain-slicked window, and you can practically feel the burnout radiating off him. He’s joined by Tewfik Jallab and Soufiane Guerrab, who provide the necessary brotherhood-under-fire chemistry that keeps the drama from becoming too self-indulgent.

Then there’s Yvan Attal. If you need someone to play a character who is technically on the side of the law but radiates the aura of a hungry shark, Attal is your man. He plays Charles Balestra with a predatory stillness that makes the action beats hit harder when they finally arrive. Olivier Marchal creates movies where the characters have probably forgotten what a vegetable looks like, and this cast leans into that "steak and cigarettes" lifestyle with total commitment.

Real Metal, Real Consequences

The action choreography in Squad 36 is where you really see the "contemporary but classic" blend. We’re currently living through a period of "John Wick" clones—hyper-stylized, neon-soaked ballets of gun-fu. Marchal takes the opposite route. The shootouts here are loud, ugly, and terrifyingly brief. There’s a sequence involving a hit on a convoy that reminded me why I love practical effects. You see the sparks, you see the heavy glass spider-webbing under fire, and you feel the literal weight of the vehicles as they slam into each other.

There isn't a lot of CGI trickery here. When a car flips, it’s a hunk of metal hitting asphalt, not a digital asset spinning in a vacuum. Apparently, Marchal—himself a former cop—insisted on using tactical advisors who worked with the real BRI (Research and Intervention Brigade). It shows. The way the characters move through doorways and hold their weapons isn't about looking cool; it’s about not getting killed.

Interestingly, the film seems to have slipped through the cracks for many international viewers, likely because it’s a mid-budget adult thriller in a market obsessed with IP. It’s the kind of "Dad Movie" that used to be a theatrical staple but now requires a bit of hunting on streaming platforms. It’s a shame, because the scale of the production deserves a big screen and a loud sound system.

Squad 36 is a reminder that the French still do the "broken cop" trope better than anyone else. It’s a film that knows exactly what it is: a grim, well-oiled machine that values atmosphere and leather-bound cynicism over happy endings. While it might feel a bit over-familiar to those who have binged Braquo, the performance by Victor Belmondo and the sheer craft of the action sequences make it a mandatory watch for genre fans. It’s a dark, bruising ride through a Paris you won't find on a postcard, and frankly, I enjoyed every gloomy minute of it.