Heartbeat Detector

The French have the angst market cornered and Heartbeat Detector is a typical slice of garlic marinated miserablism which moves at un escargot's pace.

Simon (Amalric) is a spiritually drained shrink (and inexplicably a lady magnet) advising top firms on which employees should get the chop.

During the course of his latest assignment, he is drawn to the enigmatic Mathias (Lonsdale), a CEO who is either breaking down or privy to an unsettling, little known truth.

Digging deeper, the psychologist discovers shocking secrets about the WW2 family backgrounds of the company’s top brass, making him question his own capacity for ignorning the human cost of his work.

What could have been a diverting thriller or corrosive Fight Club style black comedy is strangled by a joyless, wayward script based on Francois Emmanuel's novel and the self-indulgent running time.

The editor’s scalpel should have been taken to an interminable concert scene (Simon’s predicament is put to song not once, but twice!) and an embarrassing rave scene.

Amalric and Lonsdale (the French son and father informants in Spielberg’s Munich) deserve better characters than the charmless, well-heeled mopers they have been served here, and ultimately, these business efficiency groups may be distasteful but they are not the SS.

Director Nicolas Klotz… you’re fired.

Rob Daniel