Trezor [Vault] **** (2018, Anger Zsolt, Péter Scherer, Tasnádi Bence, Bezerédi Zoltán, Gabriella Hámori, Ferenc Elek, Kőszegi Ákos) – Classic Movie Review 12,863

Péter Bergendy’s 2018 Hungarian film Trezor [Vault] is a highly entertaining historical crime thriller, dealing with serious issues, but not taking it too seriously. The plot is unusually fresh and exciting, packed with relishable twists and turns. 

Director Péter Bergendy’s 2018 film Trezor [Vault] is a highly entertaining Hungarian historical crime thriller, dealing with some serious issues, and keeping the thriller, characters and performances serious, but not taking it too seriously. The plot that unfolds is unusually fresh and exciting, packed as it is full of relishable twists and unexpected turns.

It really keeps the pace, surprises and tension up, and packs a whole lot in into just 75 minutes. It’s a tall story as told by writer Norbert Köbli, needing a little tolerant swallowing, but it offers a whole lot of pleasure. The tone of the film and the performances hit the bull’s eye. It could have been much darker and deadlier, but then it would have been nowhere near as enjoyable. Instead it is always amusing and actually sometimes quite funny in places.

A dodgy state police official called Kálmán Honti (Péter Scherer) gets the resigned, bewildered hero János Beck (Anger Zsolt), a convicted bank robbing safecracker and (apparently) murderer, to crack the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ vault during the final days of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. It’s the very same safe he cracked when it was a bank’s vault. But now the Ministry of Internal Affairs have taken over the building, and the vault is theirs, containing personal file archives, including the files on both the policeman and the safecracker. It’s also a bomb shelter with emergency survival kit. And there’s a ventilation shaft.

The keys to the vault have been lost in the confusion of the revolution. So, only a few days after the battle for Hungarian independence is violently put down by the Russians, the former bank robber is pulled out of prison to open the safe they can’t otherwise crack.

The policeman agrees to five years off the safecracker’s 20-year sentence in return for breaking in to the vault and destroying his file. The great safecracker has little trouble cracking the safe. He muses he is a better safecracker than a criminal. He looks pleased, smug even, moves along the big bolts, and opens the huge door. It’s a big suspense moment. But what the convict finds inside the vault is not exactly what he was expecting.

No further plot or spoilers will be revealed here, as that would spoil the fun of this tremendously well achieved entertainment, catnip to all fans of heist movies or the locked-in-a-vault or cellar film sub-genre. It so smoothly done, with a subtle low-key turn from main actor Anger Zsolt, a contrasting effectively busier turn from the villain Péter Scherer, and excellently judged performances by Tasnádi Bence as the concert pianist Géza Iványi (it’s a key role, with the actor hitting the right keys), and Bezerédi Zoltán as the creepy Ministry boss Ferenc Münnich.

Release date: November 4, 2018 (Hungary).

Genre: Crime, History, Thriller.

Cast: Anger Zsolt, Péter Scherer, Tasnádi Bence, Bezerédi Zoltán, Gabriella Hámori, Ferenc Elek, and Kőszegi Ákos.

It is atmospherically shot in and around Budapest, Hungary, conjuring up its dour Fifties atmosphere in style.

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 12,863

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