Taximetristi

This is no gem, no revelation, no world changer, not polished, no kind art, but also no fault.

The story is very Romanian in the cultural sense, there is no base line, it starts up, it goes down fast, then up, then down etc, and then in the end it goes really down, but then life continues, despite everything else.

Once in the story, which presents the fauna of nightlife for backside couches of taxis in Bucharest, one gets to de-bone each vertebrate in the same high-up vs low-down style of the coin and back-side situation. And it works, it feels a little short, with less of the background included, but it goes bullseye to the problems, the nature of people, the characters, and it obtains in the viewer, at least the one accepting the screen story, a real development.

Aiming for that base line, that one needs to put its life in balance.

This movie is a slice of life story following two cab Bucharest cab drivers. The main characters are very well fleshed out and you can clearly see them evolve as they encounter various customers, each with their own life lesson to impart. The dialogues are well written and the type of humour is coarse but intelligently done. The story is bleak as it focuses on the fact that the working class is left with no means of getting a strong financial foothold under a rampant capitalism that splits people into dupes and bosses who know how to make money on the backs of the dupes. The movie is beautifully shot and I want to salute the presence of Micutzu here.

Oh, where do I even begin with Taximetristi (2023)? I had such high hopes for this movie, but boy, was I in for a major letdown! I mean, I must say, I wasn't just disappointed; I was positively stupefied by how awful it turned out to be.

From the very start, it's as if the filmmakers conspired to bore me to tears. The plot was so cliché and predictable that I could have written a better story in my sleep - which, by the way, I practically did because this film was so mind-numbingly dull that I couldn't help but doze off!

The characters were just as lifeless as a taxidermied animal. I felt no connection, no empathy, and certainly no interest in their fates. It's like they were trying to make a statement about existentialism, but all I got was a headache from rolling my eyes too hard.

And the pacing! Oh, don't get me started on the pacing. It was slower than a tortoise wearing cement shoes. I kept waiting for something, anything, to happen, but it was just one long, tedious snoozefest.

I have to give them some credit for the cinematography; at least, the visuals were somewhat decent. But, alas, a few pretty shots do not a good movie make.

It's truly baffling how a film like this even got made. Did anyone read the script before greenlighting this disaster? Were the actors sleepwalking through their roles? I wouldn't be surprised if they were, considering how easy it was to doze off while watching.

In conclusion, Taximetristi (2023) was a total waste of time. If you're suffering from insomnia, maybe consider this movie as an alternative to counting sheep. For everyone else seeking entertainment, steer clear of this snooze-inducing catastrophe. Save yourself the agony and watch something that won't make you question your life choices.

This movie will make much more sense for the people who know a bit more about the hood life in Bucharest. I personally know people talking exactly like the taxi drivers in the movie.

It's a real emotional rollercoaster - you can go from laughing to crying in a time span as shot as a few minutes. Some of the scenes presented in the movie are so realistic that I could easily relate to them.

It's definitely not a 10. Not an Oscar-worthy movie. But I did give it a 10 for encouragement, as it's one of the best Romanian movies that hit the theatres in the last couple of years. Hopefully, it will raise the bar for Romanian movies.

A good movie, not a great one, but a good one. Some characters are strong and the actors that protraied them did their job. The story is pretty good, some slices of what happens in the city at night, with happiness and sadness, with joy and anger, love and hate, it's all there. For some of them it could have done a bit more, to offer a context, or to find out what happened next, but in the end, as a taxi driver, this is exactly what you see: take people from point A to point B, drop them off and that's it. You go back to your live, you don't know what happend to the ones you travelled with. Good job!