People are voting emotionally.

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

at first, this is a surprising film for me, because i never have seen Romanian films. i am not agree with reviews here. well, the script of film maybe not truthful, but i cannot say that film is bad. yes, it contains some long and unnecessary scenes with singer-woman and women- dancers. but old scenes were very good with tango and amazing melodies (and piano with Cristian Vasil)and i disliked the scene where nude Zarada was going front of ours eyes. (i was ashamed in cinema saloon with my family and wait for end of scene but it was not ending:)) OK some actors played roles who were dying very childish.and the plot very cruel. but the actors is not very good or pretty as for me they were great, especially Comissar. i like author-films (when director and first-role actor is the same person). i like it! i thank Sergiu Nikolaesku! and i will guess him as strong actor in my life. the scene where Comissar burned money was very impressible. i rated it 10.

This movie is the perfect example that you have to know when to stop and when to retire. Sergiu Nicolaescu should have stopped before this movie! The reason I gave 2 stars instead of 1, is simply for old times' sake, in memory of some good actors that appear in this movie, and in the memory of their good days. Personally, I found every actor's interpretation disappointing and very childish, not to say almost unprofessional. According to Sergiu Nicolaescu the movie was made in about 30 something days! No surprise! Even Jean Constantin (as Limba), is not what he once was, he barely plays his role and he clearly lost his zest. Very depressing to see that. George Mihaita's interpretation is absolutely ridiculous and so fake is almost hard to watch! Sergiu Nicolaescu is trying unsuccessfully to revive Moldovan's memory, but there is nothing in there. The dialogue of the whole movie is ridiculous, painful to watch, with empty words. I like more that others Vladimir Gaitan's interpretation, but in the whole context, it was not that hard to be above everybody in this movie. Ileana Lazariuc was exactly what she is and did what she can do: a simple parade of a body and show some breasts. She played very fake her role, with no talent at all! These girls should REALLY know when not to appear on screen! Talent cannot be substituted by a body, even naked for few seconds! How low is that! Just showing a relatively nice face and/or body, cannot replace the complete lack of talent! When will they ever get that concept?! Loredana Groza's presence in this movie was not only useless and not needed, but it became very annoying after very short time! Endless minutes after minutes of singing that just tried to fill the movie, besides the fact that her interpretation of the songs was pretty bad. You could easily sense that she tried to be or to incarnate a "diva", but it had that air of a bar singer nicely dressed at a corner street joint. Very very painful to watch. Not to mention the almost laughable "luck" of the Commissar Moldovan! I mean come on! Give some sense of reality to the movie! How real is that someone plays reverse Russian roulette until shooting with 5 bullets out of six and not get killed! I had to fast forward so many times in this movie, just to skip the boredom in between very few interesting scenes. I always appreciated Sergiu Nicolaescu's movies in the past, in particular the historic ones, which are excellent, but if you didn't see this movie yet and you have some respect for Nicolaescu, do not watch it! Keep in your memory the director and actor you knew and you loved before, don't ruin his image with this movie. It is so sad to see all these big names of the screen going down the drain with such a poorly made movie, from every point of view: interpretation, direction, scenario, action etc. Too bad...

There was an old joke about "Sergiu Nicolaescu movies" - "director Sergiu Nicolaescu, producer Sergiu Nicolaescu, lead actor Sergiu Nicolaescu, and with Colea Rautu playing Sergiu Nicolaescu" - it is now true!!! (Petr Falc instead of Colea Rautu but that does not really matter).The movie is so awful that it could compete for the title of the worst romanian movie of the last 10-20 years - and the 10-15 seconds of nudity with Ileana Lazariuc can not save it no matter how gorgeous she might be ... (and honestly speaking she is).The plot is non-existent, the story is totally stupid (basically in that foreign town you find like 80% of the population being of romanian origin, and almost all of them people that the hero knew from 30+ years ago - not to mention that the romanian gangsters kind of 'make the law' in that large luxury town).The movie is also a huge 'family mess' - the singer was pushed for her relations with the director and not to be outdone we find two Mihaita so it was probably a failure before even starting to film on it ...

First of all, I'd like to say it's impossible to affirm this is an awful movie, but, as nothing is actually impossible in this world, the ones that know nothing about movies, Sergiu Nicolaescu's perspective and his movie-thinking, would say it.Indeed, the movie starts quite bad, but whoever doesn't get bored or nostalgic because of the connections between his old crime mob movies and this one, especially some psychological links between the movies and Nicolaescu (there are some symbols of all kind that repeat in both 1970 creations and this one, which clearly show they represent the famous director's pride and love), would eventually see the movie turns out to be quite great.Without any doubt, the most talented actors playing in this movie were Ion Ritiu, Sergiu Nicolaescu and Jean Constantin. Ritiu impressed me to the core, he's making this a 9/10 movie, from the initially 7 I was thinking of.The soft warm colors, the great 40's atmosphere and attention to detail are also great pieces of this movie.I didn't like the following (things that could have been done better, or way better): firstly, the 40's cocktail scene, where Petr Falc didn't give his best (he was quite terrible, actually); secondly, the Gold&Black Scene: the arrangements and details didn't fit the atmosphere; I certainly didn't like the *most* actors' English, it was awful, especially Goldberg's, and his general image which didn't fit the movie; the fonts used at the beginning of the movie (the credits) could have been different to inspire the modernism of now-a-days movies (maybe Trebuchet MS?).My favorite moment: Jean Constantin swearing in the cemetery, using an old saying, present in all Moldovan movies - it's truly moving for all Nicolaescu's fans.9/10