4.5/5

Review by John P. Harvey.

Based on the life of counterfeiter Ceslaw Jan Bojarski, The Money Maker begins during WW II, when Jan Bojarski (Reda Kateb) is keeping body and soul together by forging identity papers for others.  The film takes up the story after the war when, in 1951, Bojarski and a fellow Pole, Serge (Pierre Lottin), are living in France and existing on casual menial work, in spite of Bojarski’s being an engineer and skilled inventor. 

When Bojarski loses his menial work, he turns to counterfeiting, producing banknotes of unsurpassed quality. This brings him to the notice of mobster Lucien Scola (Olivier Loustau), who makes him an employment offer he can’t refuse, eventually leading Bojarski to greater success.

With that success upsetting France’s central bank, it becomes the task of police detective André Mattéi (Bastien Bouillon) to identify the counterfeiter and obtain the necessary evidence against him. Mattéi’s only clues to the counterfeiter’s identity lie in the sublimity of Bojarski’s artistic skill.  But it is through the casual attitude of Bojarski’s friend Serge that Bojarski could become vulnerable to discovery.

Director Jean-Paul Salomé’s third feature film in a decade hits all the right notes. The story of a man with extraordinary talent driven by structural disadvantage to employ that talent illegally well beyond need, it’s a film that requires little suspension of disbelief. (In fact, as an extra treat during the film’s closing credits, we see the real-life Bojarski using the very machinery that his fictional counterpart uses.)

It’s superbly acted, and its sets and locations provide an engaging mix of sometimes threatening, often dramatic, always interesting backdrops to the action. The action too is sometimes very dramatic. Though the story is not complicated, great pacing keeps it constantly engaging. With it, a soundtrack by composer Mathieu Lamboley, who composed the score for Jack Mimoun and the Secrets of Val Verde (2022), adds emotional finesse.

Perfectly written, beautifully filmed, and edited with a good eye for straightforwardness — chiefly by Valérie Deseine, who also edited The Rose Maker, 2020; Eiffel and Vicky and Her Mystery, 2021; and An Ordinary Case, 2024 — The Money Maker is a tale that will maintain your interest to the end.

Screening at Palace cinemas.