The Whistlers

Release Date: February 28, 2020
Runtime: 97 minutes
Rating: no rating yet
Studio: Magnolia Pictures
Director: Corneliu Porumboiu
Cast: Vlad Ivanov; Catrinel Marlon; Rodica Lazar; Julieta Szönyi; Sabin Tambrea; George Pistereanu; Agustí Villaronga; Cristóbal Pinto

**Reviewed at the 57th New York Film Festival – October 6, 2019**

I am so, so glad I saw this movie! The Whistlers reinforces what a fun time movies can sometimes be. Corneliu Porumboiu’s whackadoodle work demands your attention to keep straight what exactly who is zooming who, but you’ll be doing it with a mischievous smirk the entire time.

The plot is complicated, deliciously complicated, so to go into any detail is pointless, partly because I’m still not even sure I connected all the dots. Suffice it to say that the story involves Cristi (Vlad Ivanov), a Bucharest detective, and his efforts to expose a den of money launderers operating in Romania and the Canary Islands. But is Cristi working both sides or just doing a bang up job working undercover? Who is the mysterious Gilda (Catrinel Marlon) and what is her connection to the gang? Is she in it for her own interests or is she in cahoots with the elusive Zsolt (Sabin Tambrea), around whom the entire conspiracy hinges? Oh, lest we forget the ancient coded whistling language (which gives the film its title) that the syndicate employs to elude law enforcement. This is one of those movies wherein the plot is so precise that missing even one second of the film’s 97 minutes is detrimental to one’s full comprehension of the plot.

Yet, Porumboiu has so much fun weaving narrative strand after narrative strand and playing with time and contrivance that one is totally swept up in the film’s freewheeling gonzo spirit. Iggy Pop’s “The Passenger” inducts us into the film underneath the opening credits and the punchy tune instantly sets the comic-caper tone that Porumboiu, also working as screenwriter, continues in his twisty, sometimes hilariously so, script.

Recalling Michael Chiklis by way of Vladimir Putin, veteran actor Ivanov infallibly plays this material with a bull’s-eye deadpan full of steely glares and poker faces. Marlon is one of the most stunningly beautiful femme fatales to smoke a cigarette since Rita Hayworth: her character’s introduction has her posed in profile, superciliously exhaling the smoke from her long cigarette in quite an arresting image. Gilda matches wits with anyone and everyone in her orbit, never unwilling to use what she’s got in order to stay alive and keep her eye on the prize. She, Cristi’s no-bullshit boss, Magda (Rodica Lazar), and Cristi’s mother (Julieta Szönyi), who hilariously throws a major wrench in the plot at the most inopportune time, are the only principal women in the piece, keeping all of the men in line in their own inimitable ways.

All technical contributions are excellent and Porumboiu’s unobtrusive but contemporary style is perfectly suited to his material. But the less said about this movie the better: it would be such a joy for a moviegoer to discover this one on his or her own. The Whistlers is splendid entertainment!