'Capital' is a financial thriller with little payout (C+)

Costa-Gavras, that legendary lefty of the international cinema, is on message but somewhat off his game with the French drama Capital, a mildly entertaining sermon about American “cowboy capitalism” as it rubs up against “the French Way.”

'Capital' is a financial thriller with little payout (C+) IMG_0199-Elmaleh-et-adm

'Capital' is a financial thriller with little payout (C+) IMG_0199-Elmaleh-et-adm

It’s a modestly engrossing tale of the shenanigans, boardroom intrigues and high-stakes gambling at a big French investment bank. But when you’re preaching about workers suffering from the mistakes and misdeeds of the superwealthy, the sales pitch is muddled if it’s made by a fellow who sees himself as the “Robin Hood of the rich,” stealing from the poor to pad the pockets of the 1 percent.

That’s how Marc Tourneuil (Gad Elmaleh of Midnight in Paris and Priceless) cynically describes himself. He’s a bit young to be in the upper echelons of Phenix Bank, but he took shortcuts — Goldman Sachs, to Phenix, to ghostwriter of the company president’s autobiography.

When that president is felled by illness in the opening scene, Marc’s life is upended. He’s anointed by that sickly president (Daniel Mesguich) as the new CEO of Phenix. The president figures he’ll be his “boy.” Schemers on the board such as the conniving de Suze (Bernard Le Coq) consider him a place filler to keep the stock price up until the “real” transition takes place.

And then there’s Dittmar Rigule (Gabriel Byrne), the Irishman heading up the bloc of high-rolling American corporate raiders. Dittmar cajoles (“we’re your only friends, Marc”) and threatens Marc to get him to do what his group wants: “Time for you to start firing people.”

Costa-Gavras fails to turn this situation and these promising characters into the indictment of capitalism he set out to make, or into an entertaining, Oliver Stone-style financial double-cross thriller, which is what Capital falsely promises to deliver.

CAPITAL

C+ Directed by Costa-Gavras. R (sexual content, language and drug use). 109 mins. In English and French, with English subtitles. At the Angelika Dallas.

http://www.dallasnews.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/20131031-capital-is-a-financial-thriller-with-little-payout-c.ece

'Capital' is a financial thriller with little payout (C+)

'Capital' is a financial thriller with little payout (C+)

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