Final Cut
Written and Directed by Michel Hazanavicius
Starring: Romain Duris, Bérénice Bejo, Finnegan Oldfield
Unrated
Runtime: 1 hour, 50 minutes
In Select Theaters July 14

by Gary M. Kramer, Staff Writer

Final Cut is Oscar-winner Michel Hazanavicius’ brash remake of One Cut of the Dead, a 2017 Japanese horror-comedy about a low-budget zombie film shoot that spins out of control. 

This meta-movie opens with the 35-minute zombie film, which is not quite working. Ava (Matilda Lutz), the lead actress, is still, after more than 30 takes, not quite nailing the terror-filled scream director Rémi (Romain Duris) wants. Rémi is stressed out, and starts screaming at Ava as well as her costar, Raphaël (Finnegan Oldfield), before storming off. As the actors wait, Nadia (Bérénice Bejo) recounts a curse involving a Japanese army experiment to bring back the dead on the film’s location. Before long, zombies attack, and things end in a gory, graphic, bloodbath.

Shot in a single take, this 30+ minutes opening segment of Final Cut has moments of kinetic energy, as well as confusing and boring scenes. The actors are inexplicably called by Japanese names (Natsumi, Chinatsu, etc.), and Raphaël delivers a rant against capitalism to Armel (Sébastien Chassagne), a zombie who is trying to retrieve his own arm. One actor, Jonathan (Raphaël Quenard), walks off the set during shooting. Another moment has the three lead actors repeatedly ask each other if they are OK. Something smells bad here—and it is not just the vomit Philippe (Grégory Gadebois) frequently spews. 

Cut to three months earlier, when Rémi is approached by Mounir (Lyés Salem) to make the film that was just seen—and that it will be shot live. While Rémi is known for making films that are “fast, cheap, and decent,” he is justly worried about this production which features compromises—he cannot change anything in the script—as well as complications, and miscommunications. 

The middle act of Final Cut shows the characters in their off-screen lives. Rémi and Nadia are married, and their daughter, Romy (Simone Hazanavicius), wants to work in the industry. Rémi must deal with the Japanese producers, whom he offends when he makes a remark about Pearl Harbor. There are other strained situations, from Romy trying to make a child cry real tears, or an actress bringing her baby to a table read. Worst of all, two major roles in the film have to be recast an hour before the shoot goes live. 

This middle act feels like filler, and it adds little dimension to the characters, save the father/daughter relationship between Rémi and Romy. Yet viewers who stick it out through this too lengthy slow burn set up will be rewarded with the payoff that is the live shooting of the film. All of what has been shown in Act One is presented again—only this time with the off-screen issues revealed. It plays out like an as-it-happens visual DVD commentary and it is great fun. 

As such, it is almost a spoiler to explain that Philippe, who throws up all over Armel in one scene, was actually drunk. (And Rémi is behind Philippe holding him upright.) Jonathan’s inconvenient absence is excused for a very valid reason. The strange dialogue loops were the actors improvising because something off-screen has gone sideways, and they are being asked to vamp. These moments may clarify things for the audience watching Final Cut, but they confuse the films sound and music editors. There is also a very funny bit that results in a dire all-hands-on-deck emergency to get the film’s overhead final shot. 

Final Cut is a mess, but it charms in its last act which creates a strong sense of community amid all of the chaos, actor tantrums, spilled bodily fluids, and copious fake blood. The film also benefits from Duris’s manic performance, and it is enjoyable to watch Bejo perform several scenes with an ax sticking out of her head. The layers of filmmaking could have had more of a satiric bite, but at least the zombies, who fail to remain dead, provide some amusement.