Music Box (Costa-Gavras, 1989)

 

The moral dilemma that could have been the motor of Music Box is pushed to the side in favour of the did he, or didn’t he-issue? “He” is a Hungarian immigrant who, almost four decades after he was granted the American citizenship, is accused of having committed, as a member of an ultra-fascist police unit, some gruesome crimes at the end of World War II. He’s defended by his daughter who has no doubts about his innocence but – and since the screenplay is by Joe Eszterhas it doesn’t come as a surprise – not all the characters are really who they pretend to be. Scheming and double-crossing is part of the worlds Eszterhas likes to create (Jagged Edge, Basic Instinct, Showgirls), whereas director Costa-Gavras, contrarily, is specialised in films (be it L’aveu or Betrayed) that expose such behaviour. Yet the friction between these two worldviews doesn’t sparkle: the screenplay is as predictable as it gets and Costa-Gavras directs impersonally: he seems at lost with the widescreen space and he has difficulty to dynamise the multiple court scenes.