A searing indictment of corporate responsibility that will intrigue conspiracy theorists.
Comment
05/16/08
Heartbeat Detector (2007)
76 %
Reviews Counted: 21 Fresh: 16 Rotten:5 Average Rating: 6.5/10
Consensus:
Gripping and provocative psychological thriller about corporate responsibility remains tense throughout and despite its long running time.
Rated: 12A
Runtime: 2 hrs 21 mins
Theatrical Release: 16-05-2008
Synopsis: This corporate thriller from France follows company psychologist Simon Kessler (Mathieu Amalric, THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY) who is assigned with investigating a CEO who executives fear is growing mentally unstable. While Kessler tries to get close to his subject, the CEO turns the... [More]
Reviews
Top Critic
An intriguing thriller with strong performances and a dense, complex script.
05/15/08
A confronting examination of human evil in all its enduring banality, Heartbeat Detector takes a crooked path towards its bid for some straight talking.
05/09/08
Top CriticClick to read the article
07/09/08
As driven by linguistics and euphemism as this film is, it's also a slippery and wonderfully acted drama%u2014Michael Clayton with a far more troubling moral landscape.
07/03/08
Though it is in part a stinging commentary on the soullessness of the corporate suit, Nicolas Klotz's film is extremely slow to get on track.
03/21/08
Heartbeat Detector earns its points, arriving at a potent conclusion with a stealth and meticulousness that knocks the wind out of you.
03/21/08
Heartbeat Detector doesn't really unfold; when it doesn't drag, it lurches about in fits and starts
03/19/08
Klotz walks a perilous tightrope between profundity and pretension without ever tipping into the chasm.
03/19/08
Director Nicolas Klotz combines an intriguing story with a distinctive ambiance that will appeal to an audience beyond French film aficionados.
03/17/08
A chilling corporate thriller with an intriguing mystery on the surface and a deeply troubling idea at its dark core.
03/14/08
Where Michael Clayton assumed the viewers’ utter naïveté regarding corporate malfeasance, Heartbeat Detector’s corrosive look at business culture rests on too overdetermined -- and at times outlandish -- a premise.
03/14/08
Intriguing, frustrating, exasperating -- the French film Heartbeat Detector succeeds best as a provocation.
03/14/08
Top Critic
It seems that the old dictum of never building a house on an ancient Indian burial ground goes double, if not triple, for corporations.
03/13/08
Director Nicholas Klotz's subtle suspense film Heartbeat Detector comes across like a hybrid of Heart Of Darkness and Michael Clayton, digging into the roots of a psychosis affecting a veteran corporate lackey.
03/13/08
It's a thin line between 20th-century Nazism and 21st-century corporate culture in Heartbeat Detector, Nicolas Klotz's rewardingly chilly psychological thriller.
03/12/08
It has haunted me ever since I saw it, with its implied foreboding for the future. Implied and justified in my opinion, and it may become yours if you choose to catch Heartbeat Detector.
03/12/08
Begins as a dryly limp satire of corporate culture and ends as cruel and unusual punishment.
03/09/08
The analogy [equating multinational companies with fascism] is strained to say the least and finally distracts from what began as a clear-eyed portrait of a complex, contradictory character.
03/09/08
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