NICE GIRLS (France 2024) ***
Directed by Noémie Saglio

The synopsis from Allocine:  The intrepid Léo, self-proclaimed "best cop on the Riviera" " learns that her colleague and brother-in-law Ludo has been killed in Hamburg. While she wants to discover the truth, she is forced by her superior to let a German supercop do it. Out of the question to let a "loser in a suit" investigate, especially when she discovers that it is in fact the attractive and highly trained Mélanie. Forced to team up, these two women with characters as explosive as they are opposed do not suspect that Nice is facing an imminent threat and that they are more linked than they imagine.

It seems barely 5 years ago where there was a general complaint of females being a minority in movies.  More female directors, more female-plotted stories and more finance to female-related film projects were all the rage.  The opposite seems to be the case recently, with more than 50% of the movies made being either female-dominated or having a strong female slat.  Whether in Hollywood or elsewhere, as in this example, in France, females rule.  A recent example is the TIFF Midnight Madness movie directed by Coralie Target THE SUBSTANCE who came to rise with her breakout film REVENGE, also a female-oriented movie.

The new Netflix comes is appropriately called NICE GIRLS is directed by female Noémie Saglio who also co-wrote the film with two female protagonists.  French female cop Leo (Alice Taglioni) is the protagonist who knows her way around Nice.  The male cop Ludo is killed, female cop Leo’s best friend who is also called her brother in Hamburg.  She befriends a German cop, Melanie (Stéfi Celma) the killing was in Germany, against orders to stay away in order to find out the cause of the death of her best friend and of course, seek revenge.  Her supervisor, also a female is unaware of Kea’s motives, though Leo had been ordered to stay away and look after security in the Cote d”Azul (the Riviera) where a climate change summit is taking place.

The film, at it best pokes fun at being politically correct.  The film centres on police protection of the climate summit though the finances of the summit are provided by dirty money.  Words like things being sold on the black market cannot be mentioned because of the word ‘black’.  There is a joke on the conventional belief that Germans are always so meticulous.  But cliched too is the story that has to have the two cops, one French and the other German initially at loggerheads (What happened to girls working together? the question is asked) and later having to work together to solve the case.

The film aims to be light and funny, action-packed with little violence and with a bit of mystery the story with a few twists.  The film achieves its aim without too much fanfare, ending up a forgettable little French light action flick suitable to watch on Netflix.

NICE GIRLS is available for streaming on Netflix this week - a Netflix original movie.

Trailer: