Obviously, it’s tempting. One hundred thousand euros, just to designate someone at Bastia airport. Melissa (Hafsia Herzi) hesitates, but not for long. She will soon discover that money has a smell. The heroine is a prison guard. She arrives from Paris to start a new life in Corsica, with her unemployed husband and her daughter who would like a bike. A new beginning is what she hopes for.
Borgo prison operates on an open regime. It almost seems as if the inmates have an eye on the guards. The director, a model of discouraged administration (Florence Loiret-Caille, perfect in prudence and disenchantment), informs her young recruit about this. It’s another world. The island has its laws, which are not those of the continent. In short, the establishment is in complete disorder. The convicts play cards in a room. Butts pile up in ashtrays and dirty dishes in the sink. What a mess! They have no shame, right? Soon, however, they will be reluctant to return to their cell.
Immediately, because of her first name and a song, Mélissa got the nickname Ibiza. She is even entitled to a local dialect version of the hit by Julien Clerc. At least it saves him from the dreaded polyphony. We like him, really. She provides services, brings back cigarettes, provides a fan for an asthmatic. This pushes a nice thug who protects him to offer him a deal. What time does the plane arrive from Geneva on a given day? Melissa willingly accepts these small compromises, frequents the hut where thugs meet who don’t seem that bad. This is the finger in the gear. There will be two deaths.
The commissioner (Michel Fau), in an unsuitable role, leads the investigation with good nature and without illusions, deciphering the images from the video surveillance cameras one by one. Mélissa’s husband would like to get a job as a carpenter. He sometimes gets drunk. In their building, racism does not speak its name. Neighborhood problems are miraculously resolved by strangers. Weariness overcomes the couple. Who manipulates who?
With Borgo, jury prize at Reims Polar, Stéphane Demoustier (The Girl with the Bracelet) brings pink to the cheeks of the prison thriller thanks to this portrait of a strong-willed woman who does not let herself be walked on and who finds herself more or less despite her in a mafia scheme. The character moves forward, sweeping away the doubts that assail him, a smiling and mysterious little bull. A clever flashback construction keeps you in suspense. An environment is described, with its customs, its veiled threats, its offers impossible to refuse. The director avoids the postcard. “It’s for a movie,” said the killer, after sheathing his weapon. This one doesn’t miss its target. Like his Mélissa, who learned to shoot, Stéphane Demoustier knows how to aim correctly. Normally, the future is his.
The Note of Figaro: 3/4