Dekanalog released in US theaters, the award-winning Romanian drama-comedy film Men of Deeds (Oameni de treaba) from Romanian filmmaker Paul Negoescu (Two Lottery Tickets).

The film stars Iulian Postelnicu, Vasile Muraru, Anghel Damian, along with Crina Semciuc, and won six awards at the 17th Gopo Awards – aka the Romanian Oscars – including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor for Iulian Postelnicu, Best Supporting Actor for Vasile Muraru, and Best Editing.

Release Date

Men of Deeds premiered at the Sarajevo Film Festival; and opened in theaters on August 4 at New York City’s Quad Cinema, then on August 11 at Los Angeles’ Laemmle Royal.

Synopsis

In the Men of Deeds, a middle-aged police chief (Iulian Postelnicu) goes on with his job and modest life in a small town, dreaming of having an orchard, managing regular drunken conflicts at the local bar and largely ignoring the mayor’s (Vasile Muraru) questionable deeds and the dubious things that happen in the village. But when a man is murdered, he jumps to the other extreme, trying to be what he has never been before: the justice seeker who arrests everyone guilty.

A dark comedy that weaves in and out of tragedy without ever losing its footing, Men of Deeds is the award-winning sort of world cinema that simply must be seen to be believed. Smart performances, a clever and intuitive style, and an irresistibly, unpredictable yarn make for a film audiences won’t soon forget.

Reviews

Variety review gave the film high marks, writing, “Indeed, it’s largely thanks to Postelnicu’s tricky performance — equal parts pathetic and sympathetic, with a genuine, soulful sadness beneath the amusing tics of his wheezing vocal delivery and gurning body language — that “Men of Deeds” pulls off its odd, queasily tragicomic tonal shuffle as well as it does, building on the already unflattering boys-in-blue portrait painted by “Two Lottery Tickets.” Ilie isn’t banally portrayed as a good man in a bad system, nor even as anything so glamorous as a villain. (At best or worst, scenes playing on the hoary good-cop-bad-cop dynamic he shares with Vali suggest what “Training Day” might have been like as remade by Bruno Dumont.) Rather, he’s a victim and a grotesque, so gnarled by a culture of corruption that it’s hard to tell where his own impulses and principles begin and end. It takes a Romanian film to make that funny.”

Trailer

Watch the US trailer for Men of Deeds.