Le Capital follows the course of a newly-appointed CEO of a hypothetical major French bank with global reach. The protagonist is a smart, ambitious and hard-nosed executive, but the constant pressures he faces at the helm of Phenix Bank from his board, which didn't favor his taking command but feel they can control him, from his employees who are unclear as to the direction in which he wants to take Phenix Bank compared to his cancer-stricken predecessor, and most keenly from his shareholders, particularly a U.S.-located hedge fund, almost want to make you sympathize with him. But his ruthless, hard character and the cold but correct way he treats his family ultimately prevents this identification. (I've read that the actor portraying the CEO is a comedian on French television so this must be quite a switch for him.)

The heart of the film is the pressure that the American hedge fund, as represented by a character who would put Gordon Ghecko to shame, places on the CEO to initiate drastic actions to pump the stock price. Apparently, the hedge fund has acquired a dominant position in Phenix's stock that enables it to virtually dictate policy to the bank, or at least to this CEO. Of course the dictation is smoothed by the fact that he's promised huge bonuses to implement these "suggestions". The initial directive is to fire 10,000 of the bank's employees which he does gratified by the promised bonus and seemingly unconcerned by the fact that "his" bank does not appear to have an excess labor force. The final "directive" is for Phenix Bank to make an acquisition of a troubled Japanese bank with poor assets. At last some resistance begins to form in our CEO because he senses he'll be the "fall guy" for such an ill-advised acquisition and that the adverse impact of such an acquisition on Phenix's stock price would apparently enable the hedge fund to acquire complete control of the bank at a cheaper price. (One could nitpick and say that the filmmakers in their anti-capitalist bias are confusing corporate raiders who do hostile takeovers with hedge funds who are content to be "activist" investors and prod the company's management and not manage the company. Moreover, why would the hedge fund want to manage the troubled assets of the Japanese bank as part of the larger Phenix Bank, particularly if they were acquired with cash most likely burdening Phenix Bank with much increased debt? A stock-for-stock exchange might affect the target bank's shareholders with a lower value for their stock.) What the CEO ultimately does about the Japanese bank and his erstwhile hedge fund friends I'll leave for those who choose to view this film. I, for one, enjoyed it. I found the banking scenes to be interesting and the characterizations to be provocative although in some cases over the top. For non-French speakers like this English speaker, I think you'll need to go back a bit a number of times on a DVD to refresh the sub-titles in order to follow the financial ramifications of the plot.

The filmmakers' attitude toward high-finance capitalism is most apparent in an amusing but over-the-top scene where our banking CEO says in an opulent boardroom among well-dressed board members that our new paradigm is to "rob from the poor and give to the rich" to which he's met with enthusiastic applause. I'm sure the vast majority of bankers don't believe this or follow this goal explicitly; however, their actions may sometimes indeed perform this transfer of wealth, e.g., the LIBOR interest rate manipulation which served to enrich banks and their usually wealthy shareholders (but also including 401k holders) but increased the cost to homeowners with variable-rate mortgages. I would guess the basic question underlying films like "Capital" is whether economic systems like capitalism promote the kind of greed and exploitation we see in "Capital" or whether greed-filled and exploitative people perform their misery in any kind of system (for you socialists out there, socialism did not really end greed and exploitation; it was just manifested in another form, the form of political power and perks). Perhaps the filmmakers' message is that financial capitalism allows monetary greed to be more fully realized.

LE CAPITAL is an interesting film to compare with Martin Scorsese's WOLF OF WALL STREET, released a year later. Both contain similar subject-matter (the rapacity of the modern-day banking world) inspired by recent events in major financial centers such as London, Paris and New York. Nonetheless Costa-Gavras' film works much better as an indictment of contemporary greed as compared to Scorsese's. There are several reasons for this: unlike Leonardo DiCaprio in the Scorsese work, Marc Tourneuil (Gad Elmaleh) is a genuinely unsympathetic central character. His expression (in public, at least) seldom changes as he ruthlessly consolidates his position as CEO of Phenix Bank, a Paris-based institution with aspirations to participate on the world stage. Anyone getting in his way is ruthlessly brushed aside; even those who support him in his quest for power are not exempt. His personal life is treated equally ruthlessly - although married to Diane (Natacha Régnier), he shows no scruples in his relentless pursuit of supermodel Nassim (Liya Kebede), even though she strings him along with equal ruthlessness. At the same time Marc is well aware that he is putting on an act; there are several moments where he uses voice-over to communicate his true feelings to the audience, and he sometimes addresses them direct to camera. He is nothing more than a prisoner of ambition; in the dog-eat-dog world of high finance, he has to play the game, however much he dislikes it. Sometimes LE CAPITAL does seem a little over-moralistic in tone - the sequences involving tyro banker Maud Baron (Céline Sallette)(who sacrifices a promising career in Phenix Bank's London office in order to expose the corruption lurking beneath a proposed business deal) tend to be rather static, especially the one taking place next to the Seine, where Maud invites Marc to give up his money-dominated existence and pursue the path of righteousness. On the other hand Costa-Gavras' film makes intelligent use of modern technology: much of the communication, especially between Marc and his US-based patron Dittmar Rigule (Gabriel Byrne) is done via videophone. This strategy indicates how debased the financial world has become; no one favors face-to-face talk anymore, but would rather put a screen in front of them, that can be switched off at will. The narrative of LE CAPITAL unfolds swiftly, making intelligent use of high-tech locations in London, Paris and New York. Its subject might be familiar, but its impact remains powerful.

Costa-Gavras has spent his career making movies about political issues: Z (about the assassination of a Greek political activist), The Confession (a show-trial in Czechoslovakia), Missing (the coup in Chile), Music Box (a Nazi fugitive) and now Capital (the whole business world). This one focuses on a young executive's appointment as CEO of a bank and the questionable deals that he starts making. The economic meltdown of 2007-2008 was still fresh in everyone's minds when the movie got released, and we see here the type of world that created it. This collection of cold, amoral - one might say evil - people who put on a facade of carrying out important work are the masters of the world. Much like in "Syriana", the characters are all ruthless individuals; pretty much everyone's a bad guy.

I wouldn't call it Gavras's best movie, but it's an undeniably chilling movie just in seeing the machiavellian goings-on in the business world. Definitely see it.