15

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.

I expected this movie to be just another political thriller/drama from Sergiu Nicolaescu but instead I got a character story in the background of the '89 Romanian Revolution, plus an almost more grabbing subplot about a newspaper story of the 15 years since the Revolution. The main actor, Cristian Iacob does a very good job, as well as Maia Morgenstern & Florin Chiriac. The film itself is more like the old movies of Sergiu Nicolaescu with a lot of tragic situations, memorable characters (like the driver played by Valentin Teodosiu), a slight amount of violence... Very recommended. 9 out of 10.

P.S. 15 doesn't mean the 15 years that have passed, but something else;).

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.

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.

The idea of the movie is a good one.

The actors are well known Romanian actors and they put up quite a good acting.

Of course, there are a lot of flaws in the movie, including super acting (pretty unusual for Sergiu Nicolaescu). Also don't expect any special effects, even if the movie action is placed as time and space in the Romanian revolution from 1989.

Although the Romanian revolution is only the background for the main story so probably that's why you don't get the real feeling of how it really was (or maybe it was intentionally made this way to emphasize the perception of the main characters on the Revolution).

Overall is a nice movie, but if you're very selective with what you watch to, probably you should skip this one.