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Le Couperet
2005 Comedy / Drama / Crime / Thriller
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Credits
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Director: Costa-Gavras
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Script: Costa-Gavras, Jean-Claude Grumberg,
based on the novel by Donald E. Westlake
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Photo: Patrick Blossier
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Music: Armand Amar
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Cast: José Garcia (Bruno Davert),
Karin Viard (Marlène Davert),
Geordy Monfils (Maxime Davert),
Christa Theret (Betty Davert),
Ulrich Tukur (Gérard Hutchinson),
Olivier Gourmet (Machefer),
Yvon Back (Etienne Barnet),
Thierry Hancisse (Inspecteur Kesler),
Olga Grumberg (Iris Thompson),
Yolande Moreau (Préposée poste),
Dieudonné Kabongo (Quinlan Longus)
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Country: France
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Language: French
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Runtime: 122 min
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Aka: The Ax; The Axe
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Summary
When dedicated company man Bruno Davert loses his job in a corporate
reorganisation, he comes close to losing his self-respect and his
family. After two years of futile job-hunting, he hits on a
brilliant scheme to win a senior post with another company.
By advertising a bogus job vacancy, he gets potential rivals in his
field to send him their CVs - with personal details which enable him
to find them - and kill them...
Review
Costa-Gavras, renowned for an impressive series of political
thriller-dramas in the ’70s and ’80s, makes a rare excursion into black
comedy with this inspired adaptation of a popular novel by American
writer Donald E. Westlake. It’s a slick social satire with a
razor sharp edge, in which the murderous antics of a psychopathic
family man take on a disturbing banality when set in the context of the
harsh dog-eat-dog world of soulless, profit-obsessed corporations.
Easily Costa-Gavras’s most enjoyable and socially relevant film for
well over a decade, Le Couperet
is every bit as compelling as Westlake’s novel, skilfully combining
Hitchcockian suspense, human interest drama and some great,
side-splitting comedy. The characters are well-drawn and
well-played, the plot ingenious and satisfying, whilst the underlying
social themes are apparent without being over-laboured. It's
meaty, thought-provoking and fun. You’d expect nothing less of
one of French cinema’s most admired film directors.
The star of the film is José Garcia, a popular actor who -
unfortunately - is still very much associated with low-brow
crowd-pulling comedies, in spite of the fact that his talents clearly
out-class such mediocre fare. In what is almost certainly
his best screen performance to date, Garcia brings a dark intensity and
realism to his portrayal that makes his character genuinely disturbing
and yet also thoroughly likeable. You want him to succeed so that
he can win back his self-esteem and save his family - even if this
means literally butchering his rivals. What does this say about
the kind of world we now live in, where in order to survive, we must
eliminate the opposition? What will you do - when the axe
falls? A spot of D.I.Y. head-hunting, perhaps?
© James Travers 2008
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