Highly Overrated But Still Good

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

It may take a few lines to get this review going, because this movie has left me speechless. The first word I think of to apply to it is beautiful - not beautiful in any ordinary sense, just exquisitely beautiful movie-making.Paper tells a thoroughly believable story of very ordinary people - people who feel to me like family and friends even though theirs is a nation and a culture and a language about as far from mine as possible - ordinary people just like me, in unbelievably extraordinary and terrifying circumstances. And yet it is a true story, and what is even more amazing: it FEELS true. Watching it is as close to living it, as close to actually myself BEING one of the characters on screen, as I have ever experienced while watching any movie in the 55+ years I have been watching movies.This is a great work of art, and an important aspect of its greatness is its smallness, its intimacy, its consummate accessibility: the way it draws me INTO itself instead of dazzling me with technology or cinematic trickery. It is simple; it is real; it is harrowing; it is transcendent.In just over 91 minutes it opens to me an astonishing place called Romania and an astonishingly courageous and beautiful people called Romanians. And after taking my heart and my mind on a journey like none I have ever experienced before, over the end credits plays one of the most beautiful songs ever written sung by one of the greatest singers who ever lived.I wish I could express more effectively how profoundly I thank God and Radu Muntean for this movie.

This is a film about one of the most iconic and fateful events of the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, the liberation of Romania in December, 1989. It was the most brutal confrontation of that historical period, and the one that is perhaps least understood.The film opens with a scene of senseless violence, a case of confusion and wild gunfire in the dawn hours of December 23, 1989. This serves as the context and creates the mood of panic, confusion and deadly danger of this film.The film takes us inside an armored militia vehicle as it patrols the streets of Bucharest on the darkest night of revolution. The soldiers are confused, unsure of even the most basic truths about their job: Who are they protecting? What are they defending and who are they fighting? Who are they serving? What country is this? The soldiers have no idea,and they prefer not to think about it.This is the story of revolution. What seems to us such heroic activity guided by higher ideals of liberty and justice, is often unimaginable confusion and wasteful carnage.The performances are very good, the characterizations low keyed and hemmed in, just as these soldiers are hemmed in by the circumstances they find themselves in. The dialog is terse and chattering, in nervous counterpoint to the deadly serious events. But the events are at times mercilessly confusing, and this tends to decrease the impact of some of the key scenes. Just because the characters are confused doesn't mean that the film viewers should be as well! This is especially true at the television station when it is quite difficult to tell which side the soldiers there are defending.In general, the film is quite successful in that it brings the viewer into that time and place, and makes the madness come alive. I think there is room for further development of some of the characters, as there is so much irony in their predicament that is only obliquely alluded to. As for the ending, I was a bit disappointed that the filmmaker chose not to show the final scene that we are left to imagine. It seems like a choice of modesty that does not give full impact to the pathological nature of war.

An inspiring review of a chain of events that led to the unfortunate and accidental death of a team of Militia recruits.The movie starts by telling us the ending even before the credits; all throughout the movie we watch the events unfolding, knowing the conclusion, yet hoping for a different one.A wonderful recreation of the revolutionary Bucharest of 1989, with extreme care for details, humor and that which can only be defined as the Romanian spirit of the time.The hypnotically contradictory sketches (a man carrying a Christmas tree in the subway station while bullets were flying outside, or the mistaking of a gypsy for an Arab terrorist) leave the viewer laughing and crying at once.For anyone interested in a most realistic review of the Romanian Revolution of 1989 -- one that is, however, in no way a documentary -- this is a must-see.

Was it a revolution? Was it a coup? Who was in control? Was it the military? Was it the armed militia? Nobody really knows actually. But what we do know is that the events depicted in this movie - which took place more than 16 years ago - changed the history of a country.The film tells the story of a young militia force soldier on the night the alleged Romanian revolution takes place. He is young, he is a bit confused, a bit enthusiastic, a bit scared. Yet he decides to disobey his superior and go fight on the side of the people to protect the national television headquarters against the terrorists. Soon after he leaves, his mates decide to abandon their patrolling mission and go in search of him. But somewhere along the way, things turn terribly wrong. For everybody. Because there is fighting on the streets, because its dark and its cold, because nobody knows whose supposed to fight who, where everybody else is (as the soldier, Cristi, never gets to the TV headquarters), who the terrorists are, what the recognition password is...The characters all seem to fit so well with the general confusion but also adding compassion and humor to the whole story that one might think this is almost a documentary of real events. Of course, this is achieved through an attention for detail that only those familiar with Romania would truly appreciate. But do not let that put you off; the real message of this film has nothing to do with specific issues and humor transcends borders.Trying to be as objective as possible, given the clever directing, natural and sharp dialog, solid script, I can only give this movie a 9, as nothing that is country-specific will detract from the pleasure of watching this movie. Highly recommended!