Romanian film review - Tarantino says hello: Killing Time

It's great to see not one but several Romanian films running in the cinemas at the moment and to be fair, even greater to see one which is not a domestic drama for a change. Even if it is a mixed business. And Killing Time is certainly one mixed pleasure.

Florin Piersic Jr. (the 'jr.' is quite relevant here since young Piersic is the son of one of the most iconic Romanian actors, the debonair Mr Piersic senior) is an actor who turned to directing, this being his third feature behind the camera. He did not stop at that though, but also wrote the screenplay and cast himself in one of the main roles. It all sounds like great fun to start with: two hitmen are waiting in their next target's flat for the man to turn up and what they do in the meantime is, well, kill time. Meaning a lot of baddie talk, many twisted stories, and many more obscene jokes also featuring Batman, Spiderman, and their sexual preferences. That is until they lose patience and things start to heat up. The obvious homage to Tarantino flicks is another fun idea but as it turns out, the young director still has some growing up to do and then work on his writing. Same goes for shooting and editing: Piersic wants to match his original content with an appropriate form, showing one shot per sequence, which is a tricky manner to sustain suspense and I for one was certainly happy when he dropped it in favor of more dynamic editing at some point. But he does well with casting, ironically less with himself than with his partner, the non-professional Christian Ioan Gutău, who is obviously enjoying himself a lot as the blabbering foul-mouthed killer with a dangerous streak. In fact, he is the best thing about the whole film and thankfully he is in almost every scene. What sounds promising ends up being childish, silly fun, but it sure stands out among other recent Romanian productions so if you have the time, this could be an amusing way to kill it. The film's screening schedule can be found at Cinemagia.ro. And have a look at the 'badass' trailer below: