Unidentified [Neidentificat] **** (2020, Bodgan Farcas, Vasile Muraru, Dragos Dumitru, Andrei Aradits, Olimpia Malai, Ana Popescu) – Classic Movie Review 13,008

Bodgan Farcas stars in a compelling tour-de-force as deranged police detective Florin Iespas, obsessed with solving the case of two fatal hotel fires, in the intense, incisive Romanian thriller Unidentified [Neidentificat].

Director Bogdan George Apetr’s grim but intense, incisive and extremely well done 2020 Romanian detective crime thriller movie Unidentified [Neidentificat] is set in a rather nice-looking though sinister small city in Northern Romania, with a neat and satisfying multi-layered plot and a colourful bunch of spectacularly unappealing characters, particularly its damaged cop ‘hero’.

Liam Neeson-lookalike Bodgan Farcas stars in a compellingly forceful performance – it’s quite the tour-de-force – as destroyed-looking police detective Florin Iespas, obsessed with solving the case of two hotel fires that resulted in several deaths. There is a third hotel that he suggests might be the next bonfire.

Bit by bit, it emerges that Florin is more deranged rather than merely troubled or disturbed.

His cynical superior Police Chief Sef (Vasile Muraru) orders him to put down the file he has compiled on the hotel fires case, but he continues his rogue investigations, harassing and terrifying the main suspect, Banel (Dragos Dumitru), a security guard of Roma descent.

Florin has gone into a very dark and dangerous place, what with his catastrophic debts on his car and his apartment, and his even more catastrophic personal life. His fiancée Stela (Ana Popescu) is cheating on him, and he doesn’t like it. He really doesn’t like it at all. His obsession with the hotel fires case seems just as irrational as everything else about him, but he has a plan and holds onto life by being a canny, clever cop, not quite RoboCop, but very nearly.

He thinks he has thought of everything. His plan is so convoluted that it eventually looks as though it is going to trip him up. Unpredictable events get in the way, well one really significant one anyway. Nobody can predict the future, and there’s no such thing as a perfect plan, and there’s no such thing as a perfect murder, or is there?

It is not particularly violent, but it takes no prisoners and is ultra involving, an exercise in mounting tension and derangement. Where the heck is the story going and what is the ‘hero’ up to? And I know what you want to ask. Will there be a happy ending?

Director Bogdan George Apetr handles it with great flair, taking his time in a longish runtime of 123 minutes to make his scenes work and his characters impactful. It’s a judgment call, and Apetr has judged right. With the wrong pacing, it would fall apart. He holds every scene just as long as he dares and it pays off nicely.

Apetr and Iulian Postelnicu’s subversive script is excellent too, not entirely credible, maybe, but it is always believable. It’s a movie story, it just has to persuade you it’s real for a couple of hours. There is a satisfyingly polished surface, with stylish, restless cinematography by Oleg Mutu, and a lot of Chopin on the soundtrack.

In the end, however good the the direction, the cinematography and the screenplay are, it all comes down to how good Bodgan Farcas is, and he is great, a rather terrifying (police) force of (unnatural) nature. Or perhaps Apetr is suggesting this is how we all are deep down inside. We are actually sitting there hoping Florin will get away with murder. Now that is dark.

The cast are Bogdan Farcaș as Florin Iespas, Dragos Dumitru as Banel, Vasile Muraru as Comisar Sef, Ana Popescu as Stela Bercaru, Kira Hagi as Simona Muntean, Andrei Aradits as Mircea, Emanuel Pârvu as Marius Preda, Olimpia Mălai as Lizuca, Ion Bechet as Dragos Chirila, Ovidiu Crisan as Misu Macarie, Vlad Dolanescu as Ovidiu Preda, Cezar Antal as Batin, Valentin Popescu as Dr Ivan, Mircea Florin Jr as Nelu, Ioana Bugarin as Cristina Tofan, and Ana Ularu as Dr Natalia Marcu.

Duration: 123 minutes.

Country: Romania, Czech Republic, Latvia production.

Release dates: 12 October 2020 (Warsaw Film Festival) and 6 August 2021 (Romania).

Unidentified is directed by Bogdan George Apetri, runs 123 minutes, is made by Fantascope Films, is written by Bogdan George Apetri and Iulian Postelnicu, is shot by Oleg Mutu, and is produced by Bogdan George Apetri and Florin Șerban.

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 13,008

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