Critic Reviews

A deft and satisfying police procedural in command of its unusual tone, The Night of the 12th (La Nuit du 12) is perfectly cast and constructed with quietly thrilling rigour.

The Night Of The 12th will emotionally exhaust audiences and get under their skin with its haunting ending.

This is a refreshingly grounded, deceptively plain picture of crime-fighting as a grind of false leads, workplace fatigue and no closure.

Its real-world mysteries eventually become existential ones, but the film never stops sending chills up your spine.

The film’s refusal to tie up loose ends has already inspired comparisons to Bong Joon Ho’s “Memories of Murder” and David Fincher’s “Zodiac,” two of modern cinema’s great cold-case classics. Moll’s movie doesn’t leave behind the same deep, implacable chill of those earlier works, but its lingering rage and sorrow are no less easy to wave aside.

There's more going on here than meets the eye. The Night of the 12th runs deep. The film's effectiveness lies in its matter-of-fact surface and its roiling wordless interior, the stealthy way it makes its points (without announcing "This is The Point").

This taut and piercing thriller is one of Moll’s stronger works to date, using a genre template to delve into issues of violence, gender and policing in contemporary France.

Memories of Murder actually inspired a solution to its case; perhaps The Night of the 12th could do the same. Either way, it’s a brutally engrossing drama.

The long and devastating fallout from a senseless act of violence affects almost everyone in this compelling reality-inspired account, which lingers in the mind in a way that few crime stories do.

By relocating a Parisian crime to the French Alps, Moll and his cinematographer Patrick Ghiringhelli visibly stifle Yohan’s frustrated inquiries. The comings and goings among the gruff, macho unit are not particularly interesting. But The Night of the 12th, which was nominated for 10 César Awards, winning in six categories, including best picture, is otherwise absorbing.