Counter Investigation

Richard Malinowski is a Paris police captain whose comfortable life with his wife and young daughter falls apart when the girl is found murdered. His colleagues move quickly on the case, and a suspect, Daniel Eckmann, is arrested and convicted largely on circumstantial evidence. Months later Eckmann writes to Malinowski from prison insisting he is innocent, and the detective, still unable to move on, begins re-examining the case on his own. The doubts he develops push him toward a private investigation that runs against the conclusion the courts already reached.

Counter Investigation was released in 2007 and marks Franck Mancuso's debut as a feature director; he also wrote the screenplay. Jean Dujardin, cast here against the lighter roles that had made his name, plays Malinowski, with Laurent Lucas as Eckmann, Agnès Blanchot as Claire Malinowski, and supporting turns from Aurélien Recoing, Jacques Frantz and Jean-François Garreaud. The film runs 85 minutes and was produced by Pathé Renn Productions on a budget of about 8 million dollars.

Its worldwide gross of roughly the same figure means the film essentially recouped its production cost at the box office. On IMDb it holds a 6.7 rating from around 4,100 votes, and on TMDB a 6.8 from roughly 342 votes, indicating a modest but consistent reception from viewers.