It so happens that whenever I see a movie that resembles imbecility, I feel this massive urge to get it out of my system. So here it goes:
This is the story of a young man(Shia LaBeouf) whose mother(Melissa Leo) just passed away and while talking to her spirit, she suggests he should go to Bucharest. And so he does. Needless to say, everyone he talks to about his trip asks him if he doesn't actually mean Budapest (But it's an American movie, of course they would present Americans as people who actually know the difference between Budapest and Bucharest). On the plane he meets a man who happens to die on that plane, but wait! - his spirit also communicates with the main character asking him to deliver a present he had bought for his daughter(Evan Rachel Wood). As you can imagine (or not), the dead man is let alone there. On his seat. Dead. Until landing. When LaBeouf arrives in Bucharest a bunch of aggressive officers immediately approach him (one of them with a stun gun even) questioning his relationship with the dead man. He then meets the daughter, whose English accent is that of a drunk Russian in the Soviet era (You should know, we speak English pretty damn well around these parts). He very soon falls for her, while she seems to be in a dubious relationship with an apparently dangerous man(Mads Mikkelsen) who's constantly after her looking for a mysterious video tape (you heard me - VHS video, in case I wasn't clear) her dad had been using to keep him away from her. And so it evolves into a VERY POOR cat&mouse game (not that it was any good to begin with), with very idiotic characters and a very uninspired chain of events, peppered with, what they would like you to believe, Romanian details. And I would like to insist upon these "details":
And, of course, in the end we have Melissa Leo saying she actually meant Budapest, not Bucharest, but that she always mixed them up. Don't worry, lady, ignorance is tolerated when you're dead. But not when you're alive and make such mediocrity some call a movie.
This is the story of a young man(Shia LaBeouf) whose mother(Melissa Leo) just passed away and while talking to her spirit, she suggests he should go to Bucharest. And so he does. Needless to say, everyone he talks to about his trip asks him if he doesn't actually mean Budapest (But it's an American movie, of course they would present Americans as people who actually know the difference between Budapest and Bucharest). On the plane he meets a man who happens to die on that plane, but wait! - his spirit also communicates with the main character asking him to deliver a present he had bought for his daughter(Evan Rachel Wood). As you can imagine (or not), the dead man is let alone there. On his seat. Dead. Until landing. When LaBeouf arrives in Bucharest a bunch of aggressive officers immediately approach him (one of them with a stun gun even) questioning his relationship with the dead man. He then meets the daughter, whose English accent is that of a drunk Russian in the Soviet era (You should know, we speak English pretty damn well around these parts). He very soon falls for her, while she seems to be in a dubious relationship with an apparently dangerous man(Mads Mikkelsen) who's constantly after her looking for a mysterious video tape (you heard me - VHS video, in case I wasn't clear) her dad had been using to keep him away from her. And so it evolves into a VERY POOR cat&mouse game (not that it was any good to begin with), with very idiotic characters and a very uninspired chain of events, peppered with, what they would like you to believe, Romanian details. And I would like to insist upon these "details":
- first we have the daughter driving a trabant, cause she's Romanian, of course she wouldn't afford a real car...or at least one they still made after 1991...
- then we have gypsies pushing the trabant, cause it's not a real trabant if it doesn't have engine problems. And it's not Romania without the gypsies. Cause we invented them and then programmed them to invade all of you.
- we have the taxi driver who takes more money than he's supposed to - probably a gypsy too.
- we have the ambulance drivers smoking hash and acting like total teenage scum WHILE driving the ambulance (I mean hell, we're well aware of the shortcomings of our medical system, but putting two potheads in charge of an ambulance - not to mention a very old model - is just offensive).
- there's also the hipster hostel, a dump where everyone's on ecstasy. (So that's what they did to flower power, made an essence and fixed it in a hostel...in Romania...).
- then we have a hit-and-run. But by this time, nothing comes out as a surprise anymore.
And, of course, in the end we have Melissa Leo saying she actually meant Budapest, not Bucharest, but that she always mixed them up. Don't worry, lady, ignorance is tolerated when you're dead. But not when you're alive and make such mediocrity some call a movie.