Police, Adjective

When a police officer becomes troubled regarding a case he’s working on, he gets taught a lesson about what it really means to be a cop. Director Corneliu Porumboiu sets out to make a different sort of police drama, and he certainly succeeds. However, this is a movie that takes its sweet time, and strives to show the mundane, boring aspects of police work. We see long sequences of the main character (Dragos Bucur) just walking around, smoking cigarettes, eating his dinner, etc. We even see him sitting in a waiting room while absolutely nothing happens. While the director succeeds in communicating the desired message—police work is often unrewarding and tiresome—that doesn’t necessarily make the movie worthwhile entertainment. The film is a mixture of interesting concepts and infuriatingly useless sequences.