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THE WHISTLERS
Director: Corneliu Porumboiu Cast: Vlad Ivanov, Catrinel Marlon, Rodica Lazar, Agustí Villaronga, Sabin Tambrea, István Teglas, Cristóbal Pinto, Antonio Buíl, George Pistereanu MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:37 Release Date: 2/28/20 (limited) |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | February 27, 2020 Just about everyone is criminal and/or corrupt in The Whistlers, a winding and weaving thriller that sets all of these crooked players against each other. Writer/director Corneliu Porumboiu certainly uses leaps across the narrative's timeline to compensate for the rather straightforward nature of the plot and the lack of much development for these characters. Even so, it makes for an engrossing game of figuring out how, when, and why all of the betrayals and double-crosses unfold. The story begins somewhere in the middle, with Cristi (Vlad Ivanov) arriving at La Gomera, one of the Canary Islands of Spain. There, he meets up with a criminal gang, including the beguiling Gilda (Catrinel Marlon), planning to break one of their leaders out of prison. To do so, Cristi will have to learn the gangsters' mysterious whistling language. As it turns out, Cristi is a cop. Beyond that, he's being surveilled by the police force in his hometown of Bucharest. He knows this, because he has been working both sides of the crime game—using his knowledge as a narcotics detective to prevent the cops from finding a money laundering operation. It's run by Zsolt (Sabin Tambrea), the man whom Cristi is later helping to escape from prison. The plot only sounds more confusing than it is in the moment and ultimately reveals itself to be, but that's Porumboiu's intent. He always keeps us just a step or two behind what the characters know at any given moment. The flashbacks enforce some information we already have learned, and they also fill in some blanks, such as whether Cristi is honest with the criminals or the cops. If it's the latter, is his ulterior motive just a front for a completely different one? During the climax, though, we and the characters are equally in the dark, and that sense of the unknown is the payoff. There are no heroes here, only bad actors working for their own benefit (Indeed, Cristi might relatively be the best of the bunch, if only because he has someone else's wellbeing in mind). If that makes it difficult to sympathize with any of these characters, that is, in a way, the best option. The game being played in The Whistlers is nasty, immoral business, and if we cared too much for anyone within it, we might not appreciate how well Porumboiu plays the pieces against each other. Copyright © 2020 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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