Laikals
The greatest movie ever made..!
Lucybespro
It is a performances centric movie
Paynbob
It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.
Raymond Sierra
The film may be flawed, but its message is not.
Larry Silverstein
Set in 1959 and '60, in Bucharest, Romania. and based on a true story, this film focuses on the plight of the group that was to become known as the Rosenthal Gang. The group led by Max Radoiu Rosenthal (Mark Strong) were all once daring Jewish Resistance fighters vs. the Nazis during WWII, in Romania. They were all Communists as well, and when the Soviet Union seized complete control over Eastern Europe after the war, many of these Resistance fighters held elite positions in Romania.However now over a decade later, many of the fighters are being blacklisted and purged from the country's hierarchy. As the film opens, the so-called Rosenthal gang is staging a daring daylight robbery of a bank transport van carrying loads of cash. They're using the pretense of making a movie as the heist progresses, in the middle of Martyrs' Square in Bucharest. Of course, this type of crime is unheard of in a Communist country.Flash forward a year, and we find the group has all been captured, tried, and sentenced to death by a firing squad for their crimes. However, before their executions can take place, the government wants to recreate their story in a propaganda film, that will serve as a lesson for the Romanian people.The movie, written and directed by Romanian filmmaker Nae Caranfil, is presented in a most irreverent and satirical way, which unfortunately only at times came across as entertaining to me. Towards the end of the film, as we finally learn the motivations of the "gang", it made little sense to me considering the dire consequences of what their actions could bring.Overall, I know this movie is presented in a most satirical way, but it had me "scratching my head" half of the time, specifically as to the path the main characters chose to take here.
mformoviesandmore
Now perhaps the fact that it was a movie about Jewish people should have been obvious from the description. But that needn't be a bad thing. Fiddler on the Roof showed how to tell a story about underlying tragedy in a humorous and inclusive way.To paraphrase: Closer To The Moon is no Fiddler on the RoofIt is just a poorly made movie.I gave up watching it after 10 minutes, which was 5 more than my senses told me I should. I skipped forward to see if it got any better. It doesn't.Very much a niche movie.
EdRad89
Almost all high-rate Romanian directors have a somewhat perverted fetish about Communist Romania stories. That being said, if you've seen a Romanian movie from the 2000's until present day, in over 90% of the cases it's some story set in Communist Romania,and how bad it was and how people where so against it all. Nothing further from the truth! All of these stories are filled with one-sided prejudice opinions and resemble the directors view of the world, in most cases conservatives and Christian-democrats with strong rejection of anything left-wing and progressive. So, this movie isn't any different from all the other famed movies our directors have launched in the past years about pre-1989 Romania. The Ioanid gang, who where a bunch of superficial silly Bonn vivers on film where in fact a gang of guys (and a girl) with no ideological stance to their continuous dissidence before the WWII and afterwards. They where acting against the regimes only for the fun of it, for the adventurous filling of being in contradiction with those in power , not because they opposed Nazism and Communism as ideologies. They where Jews, who where oppressed by the Romanian Nazi collaborators and afterwards resented by the same Romanian Nazi collaborators(fascist legionnaires disguised in Communists and Bolsheviks as Romanian Iron Guard followers where to do after Germany lost the war) wrapped in the red flag of Communism. All in all the actors played their parts well, as they are professionals. But the storytelling, the way Caranfil romanticized a bunch of fools is not to my taste. As a different approach by our distinguished directors, I'd like to see a movie about the atrocities committed in the years when fascists where in power in Romania, when our honorable King Carol II imposed his dictatorial regime banning parties and letting the legionnaires from the Iron Guard rise to power. But there is no real interest. It is more comfortable to pick the same over done subject of Communist Romania. My advice to you after seeing this artistic movie is to see the real reenactment "propaganda" movie made by the authorities in 1960. It's with the real participants and has a better way to sticking to facts as they occurred.
Daniel S
Excellent movie. A quintet of Jews seeing their status drop in postwar Romania rob a bank in Nae Caranfil's Closer to the Moon, only to be caught, convicted, and forced to reenact their crime in a slyly anti- Semitic propaganda film. Though based on a true story, the film discards some of its claim to authenticity right off the bat, casting Brits and Americans in all the leads and having them speak English instead of Romanian; later, it will have trouble establishing the gang's motives for a crime they all but knew would lead to their execution. Stateside potential is modest for the semi-convincing yet enjoyable tale, relying on familiar names in a cast that acquits itself well given the demands of the unusual plot. The dialogue may not sell viewers on the motivations for a robbery where the loot was a nearly worthless currency, but the setting offers a melancholy that would be welcome elsewhere in the film.