Thursday, August 25, 2011

Police, Adjective DVD

(Politist, Adj.)
DVD Review by Kam Williams

Headline: Wry Romanian Dramedy Released on DVD

Compared to America, a country inclined to dole out stiff sentences to drug offenders, Romania is a place where a police officer might be rather reluctant to bust someone for a narcotics violation. At least that’s what’s suggested by Police, Adjective, the two-time Cannes-winner from writer/director Corneliu Porumboiu, whose previous picture, 12:08 East of Bucharest, also picked up a couple of awards at the famed, French film festival.
This deadpan dramedy stars Dragos Bucur as Cristi, a cop who experiences a crisis in conscience after being ordered by his boss (Ion Stoica) to keep a teenager suspected of dealing under surveillance. But after shadowing Victor (Radu Costin) for days on end, the jaded detective realizes that the kid is just a recreational user whose worst offense is offering to share some hashish with a couple of classmates.
If you buy the Talking Heads’ notion that Heaven’s a place where nothing ever happens, then this deliberately-paced morality play might be your definition of nirvana. Think of Police, Adjective as the direct antithesis of the generic, Hollywood crime thriller featuring such staples as gunplay, fisticuffs and that obligatory chase scene where a careening car plows through a fruit stand and sideswipes a woman with a baby carriage before flying off a cliff and exploding in a fireball. Don’t expect any of that.
Instead, what you’re treated to here are a couple of glum gumshoes in the midst of an existential crisis in the station house where they wax philosophical while parsing words like “conscience,” “police,” “moral” and “law” in elusive, Clintonesque fashion. So, will the schoolboy scofflaw get brought to justice in the end? Turns out, that depends more on dictionary definitions than on catching the perp red-handed.
A slow to unravel crime saga laced with the trademark super-realism we’ve come to appreciate from the New Wave of Romanian cinema.

Very Good (3 stars)
Unrated
In Romanian with subtitles
Running time: 115 minutes
Studio: Zeitgeist Films
DVD Extras: A new transfer of the film enhanced for widescreen viewing, an 8-page press booklet, and the theatrical trailer.

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