Netflix’s ‘The Takedown’ is an action comedy set in France starring Omar Sy and Laurent Lafitte. They play a pair of cops investigating a dangerous case. The film is a sequel to 2012’s, ‘On the Other Side of the Tracks’.
Plot Summary
The Takedown opens by introducing the Chief of Paris’ Criminal Division, Ousmane Diakhité (Omar Sy) out on a mission with his team. He enters an underground cage fighting arena, looking for the most wanted man in Europe, Jordan Diaz.
Diaz turns out to be one of the fighters and after beating him in hand to hand combat, Ousmane has his team arrest him. Elsewhere, François Monge (Laurent Lafitte) — an inspector at Paris’ 12th District Police department — sees a therapist because his peers snitch on him, labelling him as arrogant and high headed.
François instead seduces the therapist and has sex with her. However, during their meeting it is revealed that he has failed the Chief exam thrice and has had a highly stagnant career in the force.
The discovery of a decapitated body at Lyon station leads to the two cops running into each other. The duo catches up as it is made clear that they have not been in touch since the events of the last film.
Since François is the one who discovered the body, he tags along with Ousmane to the Crime Branch office and wants to be included in the investigation. There, the team shares that the lower half of the body was found in a small town called Valergnes and has two bullet wounds in it.
Ousmane decides to make a trip to investigate and François insists he tags along. His former friend denies but François pulls some strings with the help of his well connected parents and gets on the case.
Once there, the duo is received by a local Police officer named Alice (Izïa Higelin) who Ousmane takes an instant liking to. They examine the lower half of the body and realise that the victim, Kevin, was involved with the local drug smuggling mafia.
They then visit Kevin’s mother to break the news to her and to try and find some clues about his dealings. As François breaks the news to the old woman, Ousmane investigates.
The lady, after she’s done crying about her late son, takes the two cops to Kevin’s secret lab which turns out to be a hub where he cooked Methamphetamine. After some more questioning, they go to a strip club where, Jessica, a former friend of Kevin’s works.
She reveals a lot of details about him to François including the fact that he used to deal drugs with this guy called Nadir aka the Snitch. Things went sour between them when Nadir realised Kevin started cooking his own stuff.
Meanwhile, Ousmane tries to talk to the bouncer at the club who cracks a racist joke towards him and the two get into an intense fight. François tries to help by tasing the angry and clearly drugged security guy. Although it initially seems to have no effect, the bouncer collapses and dies due to a heart attack.
Later, the duo, along with Alice, visit a restaurant to get some food in. Enter the town’s mayor, Antoine Brunner, who is a fascist from a political party that quite openly hates Blacks, Arabs, Jews and LGBTQ+ people.
Alice tells them that he bought a lot of places in town (including the restaurant they’re at) when the local economy plummeted to create employment opportunities and people voted for him.
They have a small chat with him and he immediately gives off bad vibes to Ousmane. The next day they visit the security company who employed the now dead bouncer and find a gun in his locker.
It turns out to be the same weapon which was used to kill Kevin and the case is closed. However, Ousmane is not satisfied with the outcome as he believes it all to be too clean.
Furthermore, he asks the boss of the security company about a tattoo on his neck which was also on the bouncer’s body. It turns out to be the symbol of an organisation called The Sons of Clovis which Ousmane believes is a secret fascist organisation. Unable to let this go, he forces François to stay back and investigate further.
If you have any doubts about the ending, here’s a complete breakdown.
The Takedown (2022) ending explained in detail:
The Snitch
The cops head to the mall and find Kevin’s friend Nadir aka the Snitch to get information. He panics and leads them on an elaborate chase across the arcade centre.
After being caught, he answers all their questions and tells them that he had a falling out with Kevin because he used to hang out with members of The Sons of Clovis. After fearing for his life, Kevin contacted Alice’s boss — the local Police Chief Mercier — for protection.
The next thing he knew, he was murdered. Ousmane deduces that Mercier is in on the conspiracy and decides to tail him. This drive leads them to Brunner’s house. There, the mayor greets the officers and subtly threatens them to leave before their careers suffer.
They retreat but tail Mercier again when he leaves Brunner’s house. This time, he picks up on it and evades them as another vehicle tries to attack them.
Ousmane and François manage to get rid of their pursuers by throwing a smoke grenade into their vehicle and making it flip over the edge of a mountain road.
They call Alice for help as she is the only one they can trust.
Brunner’s play
Alice is made aware of the situation and agrees to help. She asks the two stay at her place while she gets all the files that may aid their investigation from the police station.
However, Ousmane is still curious. He wants to know that if they mayor is creating an unstoppable drugged up fascist army, what is he going to use it for.
This becomes clear to them when they break into his house after Alice leaves. The duo discovers that he plans to bomb places like a mosque, a hookah lounge, a synagogue and the town’s immigrant centre to target people of other races, castes, religions and creeds.
Ousmane understands that this is what Kevin discovered and that’s why he was murdered. With no other choice but to stop this atrocity, they head to The Sons of Clovis meet and plan to stop the attack.
As Brunner gives a hateful speech about taking control of their own country, François pretends to want to join them. Meanwhile, Ousmane disposes off their weapons, kept in the vehicles parked outside.
Betrayal
The plan soon collapses as François is cornered. Before Ousmane can come save him, Alice arrives and turns on him. She reveals she just pretended to be nice and has always believed in Brunner.
The two fight and Ousmane handcuffs her to a car. He then gets into another vehicle and drives into the building in hopes of saving his friend.
As the two neutralise the large crowd, Brunner escapes and a now free Alice helps him drive to the immigrant centre. The cops follow and after an adventurous car chase, Ousmane crashes into Alice’s car right outside the centre and flips it.
While Alice is stuck and barely able to move, Brunner scurries out and arms the bomb. With three minutes on the clock, the two policemen evacuate the centre but it blows and starts to collapse before they can get out.
Fortunately, they fall right behind where Brunner is and knock him out. The mayor is arrested and Alice is hospitalised. François finally gets a career high as he joins Ousmane in the Crime Branch.
He events gets in on the media promotions that initially were intended for Ousmane after him arresting Diaz in the beginning. The film ends with the partners at the Eiffel Tower, investigating a new case.
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