Much like JFK's assassination, the Great National Bank Robbery of 1959 is shrouded in mystery, the first being whether the robbery did in fact take place (or was instead fabricated to justify the purging of undesirable party members), and the second concerning the motives for the robbery. Here, Caranfil depicts the robbery as a real event symbolizing an act of resistance against a communist regime that has failed to live up to its ideals. It's an idealistic plotline that molds the protagonists into crafty anti-establishment heroes, and that's fine in principle, but I don't think he manages to convey his story convincingly.
The main problem is that Caranfil empowers his protagonists to the point where it becomes difficult to feel pathos for them. Rather than endowing them with a tragic backstory to make their suicide mission believable, he depicts them as privileged party members who live care-free and suffer from existential boredom more than anything else. And although their fate is ultimately in the hands of the authorities, they always seem to be in control of the situation: they plan and execute the heist without a hitch, knowing that they will get caught; they laugh at the authorities during their trial, and they make a mockery of the film shoot without getting reprimanded.
As far as authenticity is concerned, it also doesn't help that the director chose an English-speaking cast and portrays communist Romania as a rather idyllic setting (granted the late 1950s were a more liberal era than what came afterwards). That said, I give him credit for at least shooting it in Bucharest and having the actors pronounce the Romanian names accurately.
To be fair, it's not a terrible movie from any technical standpoint (acting, set design, cinematography, etc.) and I found it both genuinely funny and cringy, because you can't overlook the absurdity of 1950s Romanians speaking English with British accents (note: if you enjoy that, I recommend the 2017 TV-series Comrade Detective). But my impression is that the director missed a golden opportunity to create a black comedy that is both tragic and comic, choosing instead to shoot a light-hearted parody.
The main problem is that Caranfil empowers his protagonists to the point where it becomes difficult to feel pathos for them. Rather than endowing them with a tragic backstory to make their suicide mission believable, he depicts them as privileged party members who live care-free and suffer from existential boredom more than anything else. And although their fate is ultimately in the hands of the authorities, they always seem to be in control of the situation: they plan and execute the heist without a hitch, knowing that they will get caught; they laugh at the authorities during their trial, and they make a mockery of the film shoot without getting reprimanded.
As far as authenticity is concerned, it also doesn't help that the director chose an English-speaking cast and portrays communist Romania as a rather idyllic setting (granted the late 1950s were a more liberal era than what came afterwards). That said, I give him credit for at least shooting it in Bucharest and having the actors pronounce the Romanian names accurately.
To be fair, it's not a terrible movie from any technical standpoint (acting, set design, cinematography, etc.) and I found it both genuinely funny and cringy, because you can't overlook the absurdity of 1950s Romanians speaking English with British accents (note: if you enjoy that, I recommend the 2017 TV-series Comrade Detective). But my impression is that the director missed a golden opportunity to create a black comedy that is both tragic and comic, choosing instead to shoot a light-hearted parody.