The Ax

The Ax (Le Couperet, 2005) is a jet-black comedy thriller you can watch online on iFILM. Directed by Costa-Gavras, the Belgian-French-Spanish co-production stars José Garcia as Bruno Davert, a paper-industry manager who has spent two years unemployed after being laid off.

Bruno's savings are gone, his wife works two jobs to keep up with the mortgage, and every decent opening draws the same pool of qualified candidates. His solution is grimly logical: identify the other serious applicants and kill them one by one until only he remains. The film follows his methodical campaign with a straight face, treating each murder as a routine task in a job search gone wrong.

Based on Donald E. Westlake's novel, Costa-Gavras turns the story into a blunt satire of corporate downsizing and middle-class desperation. Karin Viard plays the wife kept entirely in the dark. It's the kind of film that makes you laugh before making you uncomfortable — which is precisely the point. Stream The Ax (2005) online on iFILM.