The director orchestrates his action with slippery subtlety and droll humor, and he continually surprises on his way to an expressively non-verbal finale of light and music.

| Jan 27, 2021

It has such a playful attitude toward genre...absurd but quite genuine.

| May 11, 2020

Romanian film-maker Corneliu Porumboiu dispenses with the miserabilism associated with his country's cinema in this tart romp about a tangle of double crossings.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 10, 2020

As deep as a puddle, but great fun in the moment.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 7, 2020

It's as though in finally embracing genre conventions he previously spurned, [Corneliu] Porumboiu has thrown his arms around the whole of cinema.

| May 6, 2020

Porumboiu's goal is more obvious - having fun, with a candy-brightness that fans of his low-key oeuvre may take a moment to adjust to.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 6, 2020

The final cry The Whistlers makes is one of forgiveness and grace, the unspoken connective pull of human understanding impossible to resist.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 23, 2020

The effort's worth it, if only for the pleasure of seeing one of the world's finest filmmakers let his hair down and play his justified paranoia for genre thrills.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 12, 2020

"The Whistlers" has more than enough sex and violence to satisfy the average action movie fan. But dig a bit deeper, and you'll find a mother lode of meaning just below the surface.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Mar 26, 2020

Heralded by a blast of Iggy Pop's insouciant anthem and nearly three times as expensive as any previous Porumboiu film, The Whistlers suggests an updated, if still scaled down, version of glitzy mid-1960s international caper films...

| Mar 6, 2020

What it lacks in terms of the rigor associated with Porumboiu's back catalog, it makes up for as a deadpan genre piece with a sly jab. It's a serious work of pulp friction.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 4, 2020

The Whistlers is a clever but never smug exploration of the power of language itself, simultaneously demonstrating how the genius of the Romanian New Wave continues to take new and exciting forms.

| Mar 3, 2020

Deftly told, with a fascination with language and the way stories are told that keep it from being just one more story about a corrupt cop.

| Mar 2, 2020

There was a surplus of plot twists, double crosses... It left me cold.

| Feb 29, 2020

The tone is funny, but in a very dry way... The characters are also kind of flat -- by design, but it made it harder for me to invest in them.

| Feb 29, 2020

I rather enjoyed it... [director Corneliu Porumboiu] makes Coen Brothers' films.

| Feb 29, 2020

If you've never experienced the Romanian New Wave, The Whistlers is as good a place as any to start.

| Feb 28, 2020

There's not much to Porumboiu's latest beyond a surplus of plot twists and double crosses.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Feb 28, 2020

There's no risk of my revealing what happens in Porumboiu's film, because I remain, as I began, in the dark.

| Feb 28, 2020

If the film goes faster and farther than its predecessors, it does so at the expense of depth. That's intentional, though.

| Feb 27, 2020