A very unnecessary quasi-supernatural romantic drama, this is the story of Charlie, an unhinged Chicagoan whose mother dies, then returns in spirit to tell him to go to Bucharest. On the plane, he meets a Romanian musician, who dies in his seat, resurrects, and tells him to take a gift to his daughter. Charlie finds the girl, Gabi, and duly falls in love with her. Although Gabi seems to reciprocate his affections, she is married to a violent psychopath, Nigel, which leads our twitchy hero on a dark journey into the Romanian underworld.
The fatal flaw here lies in the implausibility of the central love story. There's little chemistry between the principal actors, Shia LaBeouf and Evan Rachel Wood, and it feels as if the makeup and hair departments have conspired to ensure that neither looks their best. The cast must also cope with a clumsy script, improbable chance encounters, illogical timings and villains with names like Darko. The dialogue is dodgy, most notably when the lovers have their first quarrel. Gabi: "You're like a wind of shit in my life. I wish you would blow over." Charlie: "No Gabi, we're the pearl! The rest is oyster."
Director Fredrik Bond, whose background is in commercials, papers over these structural problems by cobbling together a heightened reality more suited to a music video. His main tricks are slow-motion smoke that forms into floating souls, and the random superimposition of images. His predilection for swooping nocturnal helicopter shots of the city, techno music and nightmare showdowns in filthy toilets are derivative of another, better film about Americans out of their element in a foreign country: Gaspar Noé's haunting Enter the Void.
Trouble is, Bond doesn't follow through with this metaphysical style. He stages violent scenes with such graphic realism – the film's first frame is a close-up of Charlie's bleeding, pulped face – that we cannot help but be revolted.
The cast is excellent, but underemployed. Wood seems too intent on speaking with a credible Romanian accent to be able to express erotic passion. As nasty Nigel, Mads Mikkelsen reprises his menacing Bond villain in Casino Royale as a camp parody. Rupert Grint has a supporting role as a Viagra-popping wannabe adult movie actor, whose nom-de-porn is Boris Pecker, but there's still not much distinguishing him from Ron Weasley.
Bucharest could have been an interesting character in itself, but I doubt the Romanian Tourism Board will be doing much international marketing with footage of the lawless, drug-plagued fleapit portrayed.
There's a welcome appearance by John Hurt, who opens and closes the film with some florid voiceover reminiscent of the v/o in Blade Runner – the one Ridley Scott hated so much he re-cut the film. Unfortunately, no amount of editing will redeem this dystopian dud.
