'Murder in the Maures Mountains' - Movie Review

Original French title: "L'Archer Noir." Another episode of the French TV series "Murder in ..."

The movie opens on a man up a tree, taking samples. He's shot by an archer in black, and when he falls from the tree, the archer walks up and shoots him from short range to finish him. Two cops are put on the job, one from the local police force (Hélène Degy) and one from the military (Laurent Ournac) because the victim died in a military-owned forest. The victim turns out to be a member of a fringe environmentalist group. The investigation ranges through the ranks (and history) of the local military installation as well as a local home for wayward youth.

At this point I've watched 12 of the "Murder In ..." series. I'll give them credit for each being distinctly different from the others - and not just in setting, but in characters, behaviour, structure ... I thought that all of the movies had a romance, but this one managed to prove me partially wrong: there were still a couple of people who needed to be brought together as part of a fractured family, but not an actual "romance." But the quality of the movies is inconsistent at best and often quite poor, with the end result that I think this is the end of the line for me and the series. They're not terrible ... they're just not very good.