Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Ho! Ho! Ho!

No, I'm not crazy nor drunk, that's the title of the movie released by the Romanian company "Media Pro Pictures" last Christmas. I wrote this review in February, as I didn't have time to do it before, but, anyway, you should just be grateful that I actually wrote it.
I watched this movie a while ago, so I'll try to explain the plot from what I remember. It's like this. A kid lives with his mother - the father left them - and the mother gets out of work a bit too late to reach the stores on time and buy her kid a present. Therefore, she tells the kid they'll go to the mall together the next day and buy a present from the money Santa left them. They reach the parking lot and their car breaks up (it's a fucking Dacia 1310 what would you expect?!), so the mother calls the repairmen and lets the kid wait for her at the mall restaurant. The repairmen were very funny, and in my opinion, their best scene is when they blow the engine and the hood flies away.
Back to the kid, he meets a gipsy guy who's up to no good and always gets into trouble by stealing from customers. The guy's name is "Gipu" and he always gets angry when he is called "Gicu". So the first kid, called, I think, Horaţiu, goes with Gipu through the mall and get into some trouble. At one point, they get separated and Horaţiu meets up with a guy dressed as Santa, called Ion (played by the Romanian Elvis - Ştefan Bănică Jr). This guy is part of a band of robbers who are there to steal some jewels. If at first Ion is a big fat jerk, he turns out to be a real nice guy in the end. Then there's this new security guy, played by Pavel Bartoş, who is a bit stupid and messes up a lot of times. The security guy - Marin - and Ion have a quarel, as Ion stole his girlfriend some time ago. Their fight is very funny, specially when Marin acts like a gay ninja.
As you'd expect from a Home Alone like movie, there are a bunch of bad guys, all dressed like Santa Clause, which want to kidnap the kid, because he heard their plan of stealing the jewels. The plot is full of funny stuff and in the end it has a happy ending, as all christmas themed movies should. I won't spoil more of the story, because you may just want to see the movie, so I'll get on to the final marks.

So, here I go:
Story: 8/10 (because it kinda has a lot of cliffhangers and it copies Home Alone)
Acting: 8/10 (because all actors get into their roles surprinsingly well, but there are certain flaws)
Fun factor: 9/10 (because I laughed a lot when I watched it)
Originality: 7/10 (copying Home Alone is not what it takes to get aknowledged by critics, but it still has some original stuff in it).
Effects: 8/10 (not too many effects in this movie)
Soundtrack: 9/10 (even Ştefan Bănică Jr contributes with a song).
Overall: 8,16/10

Conclusions:
This is a fair movie. It's a step ahead for Romanian cinematography, which, ever since the 1990's kept going downwards.

0 comments:

Post a Comment