Operatiunea 'Monstrul'

A couple of communist businessmen go fishing while their wives think they're on a business trip. They take along two of their friends and side-kicks and a somewhat unstable children book writer fella who's providing them with a means of transportation.

Once there, they set up a camp and make plans for catching the biggest fish around those waters, legendarily called `The Monster'. While the action drags on, the movie is great in depicting the mentality and attitudes of socially important people back in communist times.

The leading actor, Toma Caragiu, delivers exceptionally as the flamboyant leader of the group, self-righteous and passing judgement at every step, with great self-irony. A great performance by Octavian Cotescu, who depicts another influential socialist figure, bent onto bragging either about places he has visited abroad or the fabulous things he had acquired there. Marin Moraru is their inadvertedly funny right-hand man in the office and their delivery boy and messenger during this whole trip.

The movie is great and definitely delivers, yet hindered by its technical flaws.

I've seen this movie many times now, and I must tell you it is the best comedy movie ever made in Romania. Everything about it, is extraordinary. First of all is the acting; cast with THE GREAT Toma Caragiu; The are the jokes, intelligent and very funny; And I must say for a romanian movie this old it looks and sound great. See it!

"Operatiunea Monstrul" is a very well structured film, with actors who can be named "monsters of cinematography", great dialogues. It's an example of how a low budget film may become a big success through its actors, scenography and talent of the director.

I think that this film has no problem if being compared with other productions from Hollywood because it looks and sounds very real, and is very closed to the heart of the target public: the romanian people.

What is very very interesting is that although the film is a parody of the communist system from that days in Romania, the censure did not react as I expect. Another words, bravo !

Finesse is the word to characterize this movie. It was done in the year I was born, but I still enjoy it and I think it describes perfectly those times... I still wonder how it was possible for this movie to be made considering the fact the communism was at it's apogee in that era... The answer is either the finesse of the script, of the actors and everything was so wonderful that it just slipped past the censorship or the finesse was so sublime that even the censorship would have had a very difficult task to prove any criticism was brought to the system... Thas why I think this movie is one to remember... of course, there are other things of interest beside the subtle criticism of the system, which are very entertaining. The movie is about the relationship between people in the purest form and a lesson about what they are in every situation. Even in a vacation no one else know about, in the middle of the Danube Delta.

Now this movie is simply awesome! It's by far the best ever produced in the history of romanian movies! Toma Caragiu's sublime acting make it unforgettable! Just imagine under what sort of circumstances the movie was made - ubiquitous communism! In a time where freedom of speech was simply utopian the actors simply overcome this imprisonment through subtle and subliminal commy jokes. The comprehensive understanding of this movie is limited to those able to overstand the romanian language as well as for the versed viewer and connoisseur of romanian history, which may count imho as the only drawback of the movie, apart from the poor audio/video quality - but hey, remember it's 1976 in communist Romania?!??? Well 'nuff said, but remember: don't even try to start a conversation about romanian movies if you didn't see this work of art!