Boss

The movie was looong. And felt looong. Characters either speak in elaborate metaphors or stare in the void to convey their inscrutable complexity and depth. Drama ensues again and again from people not checking their phones. Really? My days of trying to swallow this... stuff... are over.

In recent decades, Romanian cinematography has made great strides and has produced amazing films. Spoiler alert: this not one of them.

One thing going for the movie is that it manages to create a good atmosphere of suspense and omen. If only the atmosphere had a compelling story to wrap around - but alas, it doesn't. The story is pretty random and unremarkable.

How to review a movie so bad that you start wondering if the director has any friends? Didn't they watch it? Didn't they tell him it is not a neo-noir, it is just a very bad and boring artsy movie. I gave it a 6 stars for the sake of "first try" - Romania's pitiful first neo-noir movie. However, we may still compare it with a psychological thriller that gives the anxiety and anguish that a neo-noir movie should make you feel, Sergiu Nicolaescu's Ciuleandra. That was a well played, well directed and well written movie.

Boss gives a painful and incredibly unrealistical story, without a narrative, without a competent plot twist and with a nonsense ending.

Although the plot could have been more impressive, the actors deliver a really good performance. The "thriller" feeling is effectively conveyed to the audience through the music, color grading, and the plot itself. On the other hand, the movie lacks depth in some places. The action is quite slow and boring, and the dialogue is delivered in a manner reminiscent of a snail's pace, which feels entirely unrealistic. The camera movement is uninspired and generally static. It seems they just set up a camera on a tripod and adhere strictly to framing rules. I hope that Romanian movies will attain the fluidity and pacing of modern-day films, as it appears we are still trapped in the 1990s era of Romanian cinema.

I don't understand why most of the Romanian movies are so boring. The right length for everything that happen in this movie would be 90 minutes not 120.

The movie directors don't understand the current realities where our brains are trained for speed and not able to cope with a 3 minutes scene when nothing happens or to wait 30 seconds a reply of an actor to just say one word.

This style of movie would fit with the 70's of the last century. It is a pity because there are many good stories but the way how they are made are not difficult to keep interest of the viewer.

I liked the main character and would love to see him in more movies.

This could have been an interesting 20 minutes short film.

Judging by the story , the writer of this movie knew exactly what he wanted as an opening act.

Wrote the middle of the movie in 2 sentences and had no idea what to do for the ending.

The intro of the movie (the heist) wich is mentioned in the description , gets completely skipped . The movie starts some days after and you don't realize that until you get about 30-40 minutes in.

It seems like they tried their hardest to reach the 2 hour mark. When the scenery changes you must watch the character slowly get out of his has, slowly close the door. Slowly walks up to the house door, slowly opens its. Slowly enters , slowly closes the door, slowly locks the door, and another 5 seconds of him walking until he meets someone and they start a dialogue.

But it doesn't stop here.

The main character frowns at everybody . Whenever there is a dialogue he must first frown at somebody , the camera shows a close up for like 5 to 10 seconds . Then the character speaks .

After the line, the character that must respond , usually takes 5 seconds of looking , just looking, and then it delivers its like. Back to the main character who must ansewer , he frowns again for 10 seconds and then spouts some nonsense. And this is how dialogue works through the movie.

The movie has 2 hours and 10 minutes.

Only 20 minutes something actually happens. The rest is nonsense .

By far one of the worst movies I ever saw.