Claudiu Bleont Movies

Charles Band has been making horror movies in Rumania for several years, so it should come as no surprise to find his local collaborators, associate producer Vlad Paunescu and costume designer Oana Paunescu, among the crew of this ambitious historical epic from The Kushner-Locke Company and director Joe Chappelle (Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers). It's an impressive attempt at rehabilitating the image of Vlad Tepes (Rudolf Martin), the famous Transylvanian prince who inspired Bram Stoker as the model for his vampiric count in the novel Dracula. That's part of the problem with Chappelle's film, because Martin plays Vlad as a sultry, pouting romantic figure in the Frank Langella mode rather than as a man who might have been capable of such astonishing savagery and physical strength on a battlefield. He pouts for money from the King of Hungary (Roger Daltrey being out-pouted for once), romances Jane March, speaks in a petulant growl, and generally looks like he'd be more at home on the dancefloor of a chic discotheque than on a corpse-strewn battlefield. Only the unavoidable feeling that he might be a vampire (he isn't) makes him seem even remotely threatening or dangerous. The rest of the film is better, with authentic-looking locations, some surprising gore, and nicely-handled battle scenes. Peter Weller comes off the best among the cast, playing the creepy Father Stefan with a suitable gravity and authority. It is very difficult to take the historical Dracula away from the vampire legends after over a century of Stoker-inspired over 150 films, but Chappelle and his cast make a game effort, and if they don't exactly succeed in removing the shadow of the vampire from their heroic prince, they have at least produced a rousing entertainment which is far better than anyone had a right to expect. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi

A Romanian soldier must choose between family loyalty and political allegiance in this disturbing Romanian drama set in 1925. Capt. Petri Dumitriu has been reassigned to a lonely outpost on the Danube after his wife Marie Therese Von Debretsy refuses the advances of a highly ranked general. On the Danube, Dumitriu's life is thrown into turmoil after Romanian soldiers are brutally slain in an ambush by Macedonian bandits. In retaliation, Dumitriu is ordered to execute the innocent local Bulgarians who work in his family's garden. Marie Therese is appalled and Dumitriu must make a terribly painful decision. (aka Un Ete Inoubliable) ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Lucian Pintilie wrote this dramatic tale of a woman who travels through Romania on a journey to bury her father's ashes, while the countryside lapses into chaos during the final days of the Ceausescu regime. ~ Nicole Gagne, Rovi

This uneven but interesting drama is based on the real-life story of a Romanian Robin Hood who lived at the turn of the 20th century. He actually did steal from the rich and give to the poor until he was caught and put in jail. Knowing full well they could not keep him jailed because of his enormous popularity, the police allowed him to escape and then set the stage for ending his forays against the rich. First, men claiming to be a part of his band start stealing from the poor to discredit the man. Their real mission, however, is to kill him. The message seems clear, no one can mess with the monied classes. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Hampered by a low-budget, director Mircea Veroiu has still created an effective black-and-white film on the resistance movement in Romania in 1934. The story focuses on the exploits of Sarka (Gheorghe Visu), a circus performer, and Horatio (Claudio Bleont), a student, as they join forces to fight rising fascism in Romania -- but many viewers would read parallels to the situation in the country in the early 1980s (several years before the bloody dictator Ceausescu was ousted from his military rule and executed). Sarka and Horatio are shown risking life and limb; at one point, they hide submerged in a water tower to escape detection by Nazi soldiers, and at another point, Sarka is sprung from jail by one of his courageous circus friends. Eventually, Sarka and Horatio become separated, and although it might be easier for at least one to survive on his own, the odds against both surviving are very low indeed. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi