RATING: 5/5

Strap on your belt. Hold on tight. You’re about to get on the 
wildest ride of your life. Your eyes will be flooded with such 
visuals that they will tickle your brain cells for days to come. 
The film at hand is Machiavelli Hangman and perhaps the most 
riveting and surprisingly good film of the year. It doesn’t 
pretend to be a big-budget film because it’s not. What it is, 
however, is the brainchild of writer/director Shervin Youssefian 
and a completely different breed of filmmaking than what you may 
have seen before.

They may need to put up warning signs for those weak of heart to 
watch out for high exhilaration and unbearable suspense, not to 
mention one of the hilarious sequences in recent film history. 

Machiavelli Hangman tells the time-old story of an ordinary man 
caught in extraordinary circumstances. The plot develops when he 
goes along with the huge misunderstanding and adopts his mistaken 
identity and makes it his own. Of course, the conflict of 
realities catches up with him at the same time it catches up with 
us. Up to that point, the audience is not let in on the secret 
that the hero is not who everyone thinks he is. The film is 
twisty and full of surprises around each corner. It makes you 
laugh one minute and hold on to your seats the next. 

Machiavelli Hangman is so fascinating because it truly explores 
every type of human personality there is and caricaturizes it for 
the sake of humor. There is the frustrated trophy wife, the 
cynical treasure hunting husand, the jealous mistress, gang lord 
going through mid-life crisis, the loser, the maniac, the 
debutant and the suidical assassin.

The film is a comedic gem and it is truly rare that a film like 
this delivers and manages to satisfy on every level. The 
structure is spotless and the theme and message are both 
extremely well though out and relevant to our times.

While most of the films these days seem to be adaptations of 
other works (Hulk, Spiderman, Batman Begins, Superman Returns, 
King Kong, War of the Worlds, Dukes of Hazzard, Wedding Crashers, 
etc…) it’s quite refreshing to see a film that is completely 
original. A work that shows the real love of filmmaking as it was 
created in the head of a visionary filmmaker. 

Hollywood has lost its taste for risk-taking and most of the 
material that comes out falls flat. By relying too heavily on 
conventional structure and storytelling and remakes, audiences 
become overly passive and lose a real understanding of what 
tasteful filmmaking is. 

Yves Gielgud is a movie reviewer. 
He is talking about the upcoming movie 
Machiavelli Hangman
http://www.hangmanmovie.com