[CRITICAL] The OUTSIDER

After The chorus, Christophe Barratier tries with happiness to the genre thriller banking and economic adapting “The gear, memoirs of a trader”, the book of Jérôme Kerviel. The risk was great of sob in describing the battle of a David against Goliath, that would be the Society in General. Fortunately, there is nothing. The director and his co-writer Laurent Turner manage quite well not to take part and to keep a reasonable distance, about this famous case, in which multiple trials are ongoing. They wanted to describe the journey of a man, ” Jerome before Kerviel “, his rise and then his fall. Gospels it would, however, question in The UNDERDOG since Keller, the manager of Jerome, who has detected his talent and his niaque, the quote at any end of the field. Keller is played by François-Xavier Demaison (excellent), and also a consultant scenario, because old trader himself. Such a guru, he has his followers, he rewards as well as it belittles. He bizute and abuses his power, using the schoolboy humor manly and boxes of strip tease in the guise of decompression chamber. He keeps his pack of wolves of traders in a state of tension, and it is not so far from the Wolf of Wall Street, this state of permanent stress, alert, game. Because it is well of game it is.

Without being a Rastignac breton, Jerome is ambitious. Coming from a family of modest means, it starts in the middle-office of the bank. It is responsible for reporting to traders, who treat him as a stooge. The director has grasped the power relations that are established between, on the one side, those who take risks and report to the bank and the other, those who care, producing nothing other than states of control. This form of contempt towards these trades, alert, encouraged by managers, is striking because at the root of everything. The reporting lines within the bank are very well brushed. Impressed, Jerome’s dream to be a part of this world. Little by little, he pointed out, rose through the ranks and was dubbed. In the “Desk”, a real big, he became assistant and then as a trader, finally.

Not need to be a technician of high finance to see The UNDERDOG, everything is well explained (“spiel”, “carpet”). We understand the stakes, the risks taken with money. The staging is nervous, leaves no dead time, and maintains the viewer, even if the end is known, in a state of high adrenaline. The madness of the functioning of a private market has no more secrets for us. Virtual money on which rely these men makes them completely lose the sense of reality. The most striking example of the gains in relation with the dead of the London bombings is to throw up.

“The Outsider is a thriller bank panting, which draws the portrait of a man who was given the keys to a kingdom that is too much for him.”

Keller, aware of the potential and the flair of his protégé, aid, to evolve its scale of values. But he also gives the keys to a kingdom much too large for him. Party of Wall Street, he leaves Jérôme sans garde-fou. Then her father, bail anchor in reality, dies. Harder will be the fall… The film director portrays a Jerome gradually losing the foot, believing themselves smarter than everyone, wanting to surpass the master. Not listening to the good advice, like those of his friend Matthew, the controller of risks, or those of Sophia, the young informaticienne whom he is in love (Sabrina Ouazani, in a role a little more sober than in Pattaya). He no longer has limits, galvanized by the compliments of a broker smoky on its pseudo-power (Tewfik Jallab perfect in the crook of finance). Or by the encouragement of his colleagues and managers, who take it for the new Messiah. Prideful, he knows he is at the edge of the abyss, and as a player of casino frenzy in full denial, himself is stuck in the lie and remains confident that he can do it again.

The strength of the film is to show how lucid the system from the inside, with a hierarchy involved. She covered the trader without knowing that the risks taken were beyond comprehension, since the alerts had been deliberately neglected. The UNDERDOG is also a film about the lack of courage of those who knew and said nothing. A film about the pack that distances itself in the event of a problem, or cries one of them, except in cases of emergency in the market. The OUTSIDER, the filmmaker was not able to call The “team spirit” under penalty of lawsuit on the part of the bank, is really fascinating. The pieces of the human puzzle are revealed to us, are interwoven gradually.

The advantage taken by the director to show the various witnesses questioned in a dark room by a group of inquisitors which you don’t see the face, enhances a trait sufficiently dramatic, there is no need to add more.

Without we provide an analysis of the cold and clinical character, Christophe Barratier takes the challenge not to cause any empathy for Jerome. He attempts to move us by insinuating that Jerome, who feels indebted to the bank, has agreed to a very low bonus in view of the amounts garnered. Proof if it were needed that he was definitely not part of the circle of traders. But we are not the dupes of this message which refuses to admit the fraud because there was no personal enrichment… because Kerviel was still affected by bonuses awarded on the achievement of objectives fictitiously. Special Mention to the interpreter of the perfect Jerome : Arthur Dupont, which we had noticed from the Bus Palladium the powerful presence without being imposing, and the acting any voltage. Christophe Barratier was offered a real role in dollars.

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