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Reviews Counted:25
Fresh:19
Rotten:6
Average Rating:6.5/10
Consensus: Gripping and provocative psychological thriller about corporate responsibility remains tense throughout and despite its long running time.
Theatrical Release:Mar 14, 2008 Limited
Synopsis: This corporate thriller from France follows company psychologist Simon Kessler (Mathieu Amalric, THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY) who is assigned with investigating a CEO who executives fear is... [More]
Starring: Mathieu Amalric, Michael Lonsdale, Jean-Pierre Kalfon, Lou Castel
Director: Nicolas Klotz
Where Michael Clayton assumed the viewers’ utter naïveté regarding corporate malfeasance, Heartbeat Detector’s corrosive look at business culture rests on too overdetermined -- and at times outlandish -- a premise.
A confronting examination of human evil in all its enduring banality, Heartbeat Detector takes a crooked path towards its bid for some straight talking.
It seems that the old dictum of never building a house on an ancient Indian burial ground goes double, if not triple, for corporations.
Intriguing, frustrating, exasperating -- the French film Heartbeat Detector succeeds best as a provocation.
Top CriticThe analogy [equating multinational companies with fascism] is strained to say the least and finally distracts from what began as a clear-eyed portrait of a complex, contradictory character.
Klotz walks a perilous tightrope between profundity and pretension without ever tipping into the chasm.
Top CriticA chilling corporate thriller with an intriguing mystery on the surface and a deeply troubling idea at its dark core.
Begins as a dryly limp satire of corporate culture and ends as cruel and unusual punishment.
Despite the failure to credibly connect modern corporate practices with Nazism, this exquisitely acted film is watchable throughout its 144 minutes.
At just under two-and-a-half hours, the movie is a horrible bore.
Cold and intellectual philosophical exposé of how European capitalism developed out of fascism through a mystery story of "corporate soldiers" intrigue.
Director Nicholas Klotz's subtle suspense film Heartbeat Detector comes across like a hybrid of Heart Of Darkness and Michael Clayton, digging into the roots of a psychosis affecting a veteran corporate lackey.
Both pertinent and discomfiting, this sober, well-cast drama remains quietly riveting, despite its 140-minute running time.
Top CriticHeartbeat Detector works on so many levels at once that its power is difficult to capture.
Top CriticA searing indictment of corporate responsibility that will intrigue conspiracy theorists.
As driven by linguistics and euphemism as this film is, it's also a slippery and wonderfully acted drama%u2014Michael Clayton with a far more troubling moral landscape.
Top CriticThere's no killer revelation, just a graceful telescoping of past into present and a steadily accumulating dread.
It has haunted me ever since I saw it, with its implied foreboding for the future. Implied and justified in my opinion, and it may become yours if you choose to catch Heartbeat Detector.
Top CriticDirector Nicolas Klotz combines an intriguing story with a distinctive ambiance that will appeal to an audience beyond French film aficionados.
It's a thin line between 20th-century Nazism and 21st-century corporate culture in Heartbeat Detector, Nicolas Klotz's rewardingly chilly psychological thriller.
Top Critic
July 21, 2008:
A fatally-flawed cinematic flatliner that was dead on arrival. 
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March 13, 2008:
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