15

If you like movies with happy ending, don't watch this one. Is an dramatic movie about the Romanian revolution from 1989. For someone who didn't knew how it was back then, this is an awful movie, but for someone who lived the moments and lost someone (the wife of a fiend) who was murdered only for being in the wrong place at a wrong time, is an disturbing film who tried to show an unseen face of the events. In essence, the story is divided in two. One part is taking place in 1989 when a marine officer comes to Timisoara to marry his pregnant girlfriend, but ends being shot and taken to a crematory where it is burned alive. Meanwhile, his girlfriend gives birth to a boy on the stairs of the Cathedral in Timisoara. The other part of the movie take place in 2004, 15 years after, when a Romanian journalist who lived in France for the last 15 years, wants to write an article about that boy found on the stairs of the Cathedral in 1989 and tries to find that boy. This is it.

Come on ! Everybody says this is a horrible-demented-terrible movie! It's not that bad. I've seen it recently and I have appreciated the twist in the script (Marinica dreams that he escapes from the "death truck"), the reconstruction of some areas in Timisoara, so that they should look like they were in 1989. Mihaela Radulescu is no good. The same for Daniela Nane. Romanian film goers are rushing to find fault with Sergiu these days, because he did some nasty things in the Commission for Film Projects the last years. Indeed, he's not a perfect fellow, but this film ain't that bad.

The ending is kind of silly, though...

This is the worst film I've seen for as long as I can remember. It isn't even worth a thorough comment/review. Nicolaescu is obviously a delusional character (interesting - or better said, funny - to note that when the film was released he appeared completely drunk on the news, giving an unimaginably incoherent interview); I did expect something very cheesy but this just blew me away. Nothing is good in this film: incredibly bad acting, bad script, bad directing, you name it. This can't be considered a historical film. This film is a bad joke. "Rambo" is a historical masterpiece compared to this thing. The fact that this film was funded by the state (!!!!!!!!) should raise some eyebrows...

First time when my son brought home the CD with "15", we just had a look. And we reacted.

We saw the opening credits, with the long list of acknowledgements - and we laughed our asses off.

We saw the opening shot, with that ferris wheel - and we laughed our asses off.

We fast-forwarded to a scene where Maia Morgenstern is in a sewer and calls for someone - and we laughed our asses off.

We FF-ed even more, to some militiamen invading an apartment - and we laughed our asses off.

We switched at random, to find a scene self-pastiched from "Revansa" (some guy jumping from a bridge on a train carriage) - and we laughed our asses off.

...This was the first impact.

After a while, we gathered enough patience to sit down and watch all the movie. And we both reached to the same conclusion: It made no difference. Really none.

And we cried our eyes off.

I went to the cinema to see this one, but I left after almost an hour. I learned my lesson after watching Orient Express and I did't stay for the whole thing again. Unlike Clint Eastwood who makes great movies at his age, Sergiu Nicolaescu just got old and makes movies that only he and people who remember the "good old times" like. Sergiu did make a few good movies "at his time", but it's time to stop and maybe help others. This movie, 15, is as bad as it gets, don't waste your time and even if you have nothing to do but watch this movie, do nothing! I'm not sure how the script for this movie ever won an award, because it's awful, it's got nothing new and some of the worse character lines I've ever heard. The cast is good, but without a director it all falls apart.... I saw a few comments by people who liked the movie. The only way someone can say 15 was a good movie is if that someone worked on the production of this movie or hasn't seen it. Because everyone I know curses the time spent watching this movie.