Audience Member
Was there a Romanian New Wave in the Oughties? I'm only just catching up. Puiu's The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005) and Mungiu's 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007) were both great ultra-realist tales showing the bleak state of life in Romania. Corneliu Porumboiu's 2009 film follows Puiu by taking a black comedic look at present day post-communist Romania, specifically the (role of the) police force. Cristi (Dragos Bucur) is a moody undercover cop who is tailing a couple of high school students who are smoking hashish; one of them has informed on the other. Cristi's preference is not to bust the suspect because the jail sentence would be too steep and he doesn't want to ruin the kid's life (which otherwise seems normal and upper middle class). His supervisor and the local prosecutor think otherwise. But Cristi keeps stalling - the film shows us an endless stakeout, ridiculous leads being followed up, and, of course, the relentless bureaucratic nature of police work. At home, Cristi and his school-teacher wife discuss grammar. Suspense builds up because nothing is happening (this is again a hyper-realistic anti-thriller). And then, when Cristi is finally called into the supervisor's office, the coup-de-grace is an amazing scene where the dictionary is consulted and read out to determine whether Cristi has the right to follow his "conscience" (but sneakily, and more importantly, we are led to contemplate whether "police" is a noun or an adjective). In this one scene, my brain was tickled into considering Cristi's actions and those of the supervisor in a different light and, without missing a beat, the film resolves as you didn't think it would (or did you?). At this point, you can cast your eye back across the film and decide that it was indeed a comedy. Or was it? Maybe not if you live in Romania.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/04/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Chilling how persuasive the boss was yet still he is missing something his employee gets. There isn't much action but I enjoyed the movie, even, the waiting parts, because they were so real. The lady with the frisky dog, the secretary typing etc so real it made it fascinating. A movie about symbols, semantics, dialectics, individual morality vs the law and the price of choosing one over the other should they collide.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
01/12/23
Full Review
dave j
Thursday, May 5, 2014
(2009) Police, Adjective
(In Romanian with English subtitles)
DRAMA
Written, produced and directed by Corneliu Porumboiu This movie is only intented for movie critics or movie lovers who've watch way to many movies without any free time to pick up a newspaper nor watch the news. It can be best defined as not much of a movie. It stars Dragos Bucur as cop Cristi assigned to tail a particular student where viewers are subjected to wasted minutes of him following someone on foot, before standing around, observing the student. We then see the teen smoking something, we're assuming it's only a few joints, before he heads back into class. And then, once the teen finishes school, Cristi then follows him by foot some more. Can it get anymore exciting than that. I mean, I can sometimes see more action by looking outside my kitchen window. We then get to see cop, Cristi having to write a report on this, and we soon find out that he also has a snitch or a mole, helping him with this one single case since he doesn't know the culprit this teenager was getting his pot from. And it frustrates him because Cristi's boss has been pressuring him for a sting operation.
And then if that wasn't enough, we're also subjected to Cristi arguing with his boss since he had just found out that 'using pot' is going to become an unindicted criminal offense. Will viewers ever find out how this particular teen obtained hash in the first place in time? Watch and see.
Besides from what I've just described, we are then subjected to more wasted minutes of Cristi eating his food. I mean, how can this enhance the movie when it's not even about it. If I wanted to see someone enjoying his/her food, I can always look at the person sitting across from me or go to a family restaurant. And if viewers are wondering why it's called "Police, Adjective", it is the result of either one of 2 things, which is 1) Cristi arguing with his girlfriend regarding an annoying song, and 2) that his boss physically making Cristi read words out loud from the local police station dictionary since he's uncomfortable participating in this sting operation, and charging the teen at the same time with possession of an illegal substance. Watching this, felt like I was still in high school again.
2 out of 4 stars
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
03/30/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Master piece of how to tell a simple but deep story in the best and more realistic way.
Well chosen cast, really good staging, dialogues and performance.
A really good movie.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
02/03/23
Full Review
Audience Member
It's very boring, they filmed everything.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
01/26/23
Full Review
Audience Member
It's not an easy sit through, that's for sure, but it's rewarding in the end. I personally like slow-paced films. This one might seem a bit over the top to some people (completely understandable) but it deals with an issue similar to that of Ben Affleck's Gone Baby Gone. which is the more righteous task: following the law under all circumstances or doing what's best for the victim? Or in this case, the offender.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/27/23
Full Review
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