Filmmaker Christophe Barratier’s spellbinding drama centers on the rise and ruin of Jérôme Kerviel (Arthur Dupont), the French financial trader who was convicted of generating 4.9 billion euros in losses for Société Générale in 2008. Based on Kerviel’s 2010 autobiography L'engrenage, the film is heavily skewered towards making him a sympathetic figure rather than a rogue trader. Here, Kerviel is a mild-mannered young man from a working-class family in Brittany who quickly adapts to the wild and seemingly reckless world of Société Générale’s Paris headquarters, where financial transactions were handled with a sense of recklessness and daring. Outside of trading, the male staff behave like overaged frat boys. Kerviel quickly learns from his sketchy superiors how to conceal trades, but his trading eventually spins dangerously out of control and he winds up creating covert market positions that reach approximately 50 billion euros. As Kerviel, Dupont turns on the charisma full-blast and the screenplay gives him a love interest with a pretty co-worker (Sabrina Ouazani), although viewers are unlikely to be convinced that Kerviel was a victim. But The Outsider is entertaining, while also serving up an effective warning on the dangers of unregulated financial service practices. Recommended. (P. Hall)
The Outsider
Icarus, 117 min., in French w/English subtitles, not rated, DVD: $26.99 Volume 33, Issue 5
The Outsider
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