Scribe

Scribe is a timely taut French thriller that pays homage to the classic political thrillers of the 1970s, while staying relevant to the spirit of these volatile times. Duval (François Cluzet) is a loner who takes a job as a transcriber that is literally offered to him with no questions asked.

Tasked with transcribing telephone conversations from tapes, he turns a blind eye to his new boss’s eccentricities and the possible illegal nature of his work. But when one of them results in murder, Duval can no longer stay quiet. Unaware that his mundane existence is about to be turned upside down, what unravels is a deadly conspiracy that leads all the way to the upper echelons of French government.

Scribe has all the ingredients of being a great political thriller in the same vein as 2006’s Oscar-winning German film The Lives of Others. Director Thomas Kruithof superbly builds the tension until its explosive ending.