Comedy of Power Reviews

Title notwithstanding, there's nothing particularly funny about this political drama from the tireless Claude Chabrol, a veteran of the French Nouvelle Vague whose cold and often cruel psychological thrillers have earned him comparisons to his spiritual mentor Alfred Hitchcock. It is, however, quite entertaining, thanks mostly to a delicious performance from Chabrol favorite Isabelle Huppert. She plays the aptly named Jeanne Charmant-Killman, a hard-nosed, indefatigable investigating judge who helped engineer an indictment against Michel Humeau (Francois Berleand), a corrupt chairman of a large government agency whose job was supposed to be insuring France's economic independence. With the help of Humeau's replacement, Jacques Sibaud (Patrick Bruel), Jeanne has assembled copious evidence that points to serious abuses of the public trust, from bankrolling friendly foreign heads of state to hiring Humeau's mistress, whom he's wined, dined and dressed to the nines on the company credit card. Constantly scratching his hands and face because of a nervous skin condition, Humeau knows he's met his match in Jeanne, who hopes his prosecution will lead to the indictment of the even more powerful politicians who stand behind him. Jeanne's tenaciousness has earned her the nickname "the piranha" — a recent cover story in Paris Match even went so far as to dub her "La Grand Menace" — but her professional dedication is eroding her private life. Her husband, Philippe (Robin Renucci), wants to live like a normal married couple and resents the media attention his wife's anticorruption crusade has begun to attract. But for Jeanne, it's all political bloodsport, and the deeper she digs into Humeau's relationships with powerful French businessmen, the hotter — and more dangerous — the game becomes. When a plot to intimidate Jeanne fails, the powers-that-be scheme to thwart her investigation by teaming her with another, equally ambitious female judge (Maryline Canto) on the sexist theory that they'll do each other "dirty." They’re dead wrong. Shot on location in Paris, this fun but minor Chabrol effort works best as a character piece in which the forever-chic Huppert gets to do her stuff. While the rest of the cast is uniformly fine, the story periodically gets bogged down in the vague details of institutionalized government corruption and politics as usual. The opening disclaimer notwithstanding, the film is indeed based on real-life events.