Release Date: 07/22/2008
Label/Distributor: New Yorker
Rating: Unrated
Retail Price: $29.95
Genre: Crime Cast: Lou Castel,Jean-Pierre Kalfon,Edith Scob,Mathieu Amalric,Delphine Chuillot
Running Time: 141
DVD Video Options: Anamorphic,Color,Dolby,DVD-Video,NTSC,Surround Sound,Widescreen
DVD Audio Options: French;Original Language
UPC Code: 717119113247
Heartbeat Detector is a riveting mystery of blackmail and intrigue, where the long-buried secrets of high-powered corporate executives threaten to bring them down.
Mathieu Amalric (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) is Simon Kessler, a psychologist working for multinational petrochemical corporation SC Farb. Simon's tenacious, rigorous and resilient. His successful role in a corporate downsizing proved to SC Farb's director Karl Rose that Simon is perfect for a delicate situation concerning the firm's head office in Germany. The Germans want a report on CEO Mathias J++st, who they fear is unfit for his role. The sinister Mr. Rose wants Simon to secretly investigate J++st.
But J++st is no fool. Aware of Simon's toiling for Rose, J++st toys with Simon before challenging him with confidential and compromising information that hints at unspeakable crimes against humanity reaching back to WWII.
Following a dubious suicide attempt, J++st presents Simon with anonymous letters written to him implicating both J++st and SC Farb for their allegiance to the Third Reich. When Simon receives similar letters, he digs deeper into the tangled web before him. Simon follows a clue and sets off for an impromptu meeting where blackmail, betrayal, murder and the hierarchy of SC Farb's repressed past will all come to light.
Special Features:
- Theatrical trailer
- 5.1 soundtrack
- Enhanced for 16x9 Tvs
- Optional English subtitles
- Scene selections
Heartbeat Detector
By Mayna Bergmann -- Video Business, 6/16/2008
NEW YORKERStreet: July 22
Prebook: June 25
> Corporate thriller plays like a foreign-language Michael Clayton.
Clocking in at nearly 2½ hours, Heartbeat Detector is a cerebral, quiet thriller filled with interesting ideas, including one about a link between the crimes of the Nazis and the depersonalization of modern corporate culture. Simon Kessler (Mathieu Amalric) is a corporate psychologist working at the Paris office of SC Farb, a shadowy German multi-national chemical firm. Priding himself on his ability to downsize effectively, he starts to question his practices when asked to assess the mental health of CEO Mathias Jüst (Michael Lonsdale). This is a dark and complicated French-language film that will do best with patient viewers looking for a dash of international gloom.
Shelf Talk: Heartbeat Detector received some solid critical acclaim, and the presence of Amalric (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) will draw in a significant international audience, especially those looking for something über-intellectual. Comparisons of Heartbeat Detector to the recent Michael Clayton are inevitable, so be sure to tell your customers who enjoyed the George Clooney film.
Foreign-language thriller, color, NR (mature themes, sexual situations, language), 141 min., DVD $29.95, in French with English subtitlesExtras: none
Director: Nicolas Klotz
First Run: L, March 2008, <$1 mil.
