Few things are as satisfying to hear as "Do you know who I am?" when the person saying it is a self-assured business kingpin and the person he's saying it to is a prosecutor who is about to publicly nail the kingpin's hide to the courthouse door. All those swaggering peer-to-peer dealings -- private exchanges of huge amounts of money, stock manipulation, cheating employees of their retirement funds, obscene executive salaries, back dating options, boardroom favors, living the good life on the shareholders' nickel (think of a $6,000 shower curtain) -- suddenly have consequences that the company's high-priced legal teams can't rationalize away. In the case of Claude Chabrol's Comedy of Power (Ivresse du Pouvoir, L'), massive corruption reaches to the top of a quasi-Government corporation. "These funds are at the disposal of political leaders. It's only normal and it happens everywhere," says one worldly, cigar smoking official. The person who plans to pull down this corrupt heap by going after the leaders is Investigating Magistrate Jeanne Charmant-Killman. Her nickname is "the piranha." Isabelle Huppert plays her with charming, relentless amusement. The film gradually moves from the immensely satisfying techniques of senior executive humiliation to our slow involvement with Charmant-Killman as a person. All the confidant, comfortable, aging men in their well-cut suits (many with the red thread of the Legion of Honor sewn in their lapels) attempt to bluster, or flatter, or condescend their way out of her office. She delights, and so do we, in reducing them to self-pitying prison inmates. Jeanne Charmant-Killman is a woman with issues, but we're all for her even when her relentless drive begins to affect her marriage. Her husband, a doctor from a good French family, for some reason doesn't appreciate being referred to as Mr. Jeanne Charmant- Killman. Those issues may have to do with men in power, but there are larger issues, too. "It's not the image of justice I care about," she says at one point to her more flexible superior, "it's justice." It's not too long before the brakes fail on her car, her office is vandalized, she has bodyguards and we all learn that the corruption goes higher than simply a company's executive suite. How do things end? Let's just say that sincere outrage is usually boring in a film. With Comedy of Power we have witty disillusionment to be satisfied with, and with the hope that this world has more Jeanne Charmant-Killmans. Claude Chabrol as the director and Isabelle Huppert as Charmant-Killman give us a vastly entertaining black comedy of venality and schadenfreude, something that's dark, witty, assured and not completely cynical. What could be better than that? Well, how about nailing all those politicians who earn modest salaries as our elected representatives and then wind up as millionaires shortly after they retire from office. Somebody send for Jeanne Charmant- Killman. The DVD transfer is fine. There is an interesting extra which discusses how the movie was made. The idea came from the Elf Aquitaine scandal in France, which was uncovered in 1994. The executives of this huge oil firm were caught in the middle of the biggest fraud since WWII. They used the firm as their own piggybank, spending huge amounts of the company's money on everything from political kickbacks to expensive mistresses, jewelry and villas. French magistrate Eva Joly uncovered the rock and smashed a large number of the scurrying bugs. Chabrol says at the start, with tongue in cheek, I think, that any resemblance to actual events and people is entirely coincidental.

In November 2003, after a sensational trial that rocked the Republic of France for four scandal-soaked months, three key executives of that country's ELF oil company were found guilty of massive corporate malfeasance on a scale not seen in Europe since the turbulent days of World War II. The graft, money laundering, and granting of political favors for which these men were convicted extended into the upper reaches of the government as well, so the scandal served a concomitant salutary purpose of finally laying bare that nation's long-established practice of state-sponsored corruption."Comedy of Power" is famed director Claude Chabrol's very fictionalized take on the ELF scandal. Yet, while most of the names and many of the details have been changed or even fabricated for the movie, the themes and concerns are obviously very much in keeping with the spirit of the actual event. The always mesmerizing Isabelle Huppert plays a no-nonsense judge who is unrelenting in her pursuit of corporate corruption, obsessed with bringing the culprits - no matter their position or standing in the community - to justice. Refusing to buckle under to pressure from (equally corrupt) higher-ups who believe she is going too far in her investigations, Judge Jeanne Charmant-Killman zeroes in on her "victims," refusing to let go until she gets what she wants. Chabrol and Huppert together create a woman of conviction and strength who, nevertheless, knows her limitations and can even acknowledge what a strain her single-minded determination is placing on her personal life and marriage (whether or not she chooses to do anything about it is another matter).It's true that "Comedy of Power" feels a little underdeveloped at times, and the somewhat inconclusive and lackadaisical ending may well leave some in the audience feeling dissatisfied and cheated. For while there is a certain bravery in not succumbing to the need for a pat resolution, the movie leaves us wanting to know more about how everything turns out in the end. Yet, despite this drawback, this is an interesting, and, at times, even gripping little drama that gives us a chance to watch a beautiful, dynamic actress in action. It is Huppert's multi-layered portrayal of a moral crusader who is also very much a flawed and vulnerable human being that rivets our attention and helps us wade through all the arcane trivia of the corporate-world plotting. Chabrol keeps the film moving at an expeditious pace, with a tasty mixture of both humor and suspense thrown in for good measure. But it is in the confrontation scenes between Huppert and her various high profile targets that the film truly engages our attention.In addition to Huppert, Chabrol has elicited uniformly sharp performances from Francois Berleand, Patrick Bruel, Marilyne Canto, Robin Renucci and Thomas Chabrol (the son of Chabrol and the great actress Stephane Audran). As an ensemble, these gifted performers bring the larger issues into focus while keeping us thoroughly engrossed and entertained at the same time.

Jan 7, 2007 In Comedy of Power, Isabelle Huppert plays Jeanne Charmant-Killman, a driven French investigating judge who is committed to rooting out systemic corporate corruption and bribery. As a judge and a woman, she finds herself lined up against entrenched old-boy attitudes and an acceptance of corporate corruption shared by most of the powerful older male characters including those in a position to influence her career. Comedy of Power asks whether a woman in a position of power and influence can be effective and also have a life. Huppert is superb as the skinny workaholic Charmant-Killman (is this last name an intentional pun, I wonder). She has no time to eat or sleep, little or no empathy or tendresse and no time for her husband. It is difficult to decide where Chabrol comes out on the question of whether she is admirable for her determination and courage or despicable for her ambition and callousness. Perhaps, in just posing the question in such stark terms, Chabrol ultimately displays his own prejudice. At the same time that Comedy of Power examines these somewhat cerebral questions, it also manages to keep us on the edge of our seat (not on a Hitchcockian level, but enough to make us flinch when the doorbell rings).All in all, this was a very good movie.

An examining magistrate, Jeanne Charmant Killman, has been charged to investigate a very delicate affair touching political and industrial circles. She puts in examination Humeau, the president of a very large French consortium, which works on foreign affairs. The judge pushes the president and many others personalities in order to clarify all the traffic implications of the affair. She will be bound to numerous influences and his life will be put into danger, also his family life. The film is centred both on large traffics and corruption, which exist on international business, and also on powers (sometimes too big) that exist for examining magistrate. Isabelle Huppert very well acts the movie, but it seams to me that it is not a very great Chabrol's movie.