☆ ☆ ☆
The
Ax (2005) – Costa-Gavras
Black comedy that wants badly to be
“delicious” but instead sputters along, dragging out its point long after we
“get it”. Not that Costa-Gavras has made
a bad film here, just one that could have been punchier and more incisive. José Garcia plays a paper company executive
who is let go when his company downsizes and relocates to Romania; after being
out of work for 2 years, he stumbles on the brilliant idea of collecting
résumés from the competition (other unemployed ex-paper company execs) and then
killing the best of the lot. We see several
of these murders staged for presumably comic effect. At the end of the line is the current
occupant of the coveted job played expertly by Dardenne Bros. favourite,
Olivier Gourmet. Along for the ride are
spouse Karin Viard (trying her best to hold things together) and two kids, one
of whom seems to be following in criminal footsteps. (The family drama unfolds around the central
action and sometimes distracts from it). Costa-Gavras wants us to see how
inhumanely people are treated in the age of corporate competition but that joke
isn’t funny anymore. Still, there might
be a sharper film buried here somewhere; Garcia is a Jack Lemmon-like figure
and he carries the weight of the picture fairly well.
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