The director behind 12:08 East of Bucharest and Police, Adjective shifts gear with this unique crime drama.
Vlad Ivanov is Cristi, a cop on the take who is suspected by his superiors and beholden to a criminal organisation that have called in the debt he owes. Contacted by the mysterious Gilda (Catrinel Marlon, in a performance that wouldn’t be out of place in her classic film noir namesake), Cristi is to travel to the Canary island of La Comera to learn a local language that will aid in a heist. But is Cristi being set up for a fall? And whose side is Gilda on? Corneliu Porumboiu’s hugely enjoyable thriller is more than a genre exercise. It’s an original update of classic noir tropes, investing them with strangeness and a modernity that ensures The Whistlers is a weird and wonderful blast.
★★★★ “The Romanian new wave turns Hitchcockian in this giddy noir thriller.” - Phil De Semlyen, Time Out
