User Reviews

While I'm all for reading diverse reviews of movies, this time it feels like me and eerybody else have watched different movies. Or maybe ours perspectives are just that different.

So in this review I would like to give a different perspective of this movie

First of all, the characters are complex and memorable. The two protagonists are Lica (Alexandru Ion) and Liviu (Rolando Matsangos). The two characters are polar opposites and they cover two social archetypes: Lica= The loud and arrogant yet sensitive worker and Liviu= the quiet, shy and polite worker.

Now let's dive into Lica What makes him such an interesting character that has two sides: 1. One is bold, vulgar, loud and arrogant. He claims that he has a strong sense of morality, and that he'll follow them in any situation. He's also very transparent about his beliefs, his plans, and opinions. When he encounters a person who doesn't respect him he'll get aggresive. He's not afraid to be loud and vulgar, because he thinks that he's high in the social hierarchy of the working class. Nothing new, right? But there's more; 2. His other side is pretty soft actually. He has a very fragile ego, and he'll panic whenever put in front of a threat. It's not that hard of a task to humiliate him. He's insecure, ready to humiliate somebody. And with each interation, we see hw he strugles to make himself feel good, and not accept that his childish behaivour has consequences. We also see a more relatable side of him, one that temporarily tries to makes things better.

But what about Liviu?

He's pretty much the opposite of Lica: From meeting him, we learn that he's a grounded, quiet, introverted worker that tries his best to make his life better. He's friendly and quiet inoffensive, and rejects any negative factors, both external and internal. But as the story goes forward, we see his tougher side. Unlike Lica, he is mature and has a strong set of morals. He tries to not associate himself with pleasures and be focused on doing his best work. He also strugles to keep himself together and not pop, constatly reggresing his negative emotions.. But from what? Basically, we later learn that he has a pretty depressing life. His wife, Veronica (Victoria Raileanu) lost interest in him, claiming that their romantic and sexual life is gone. She is very vocal about her desire to escape poverty and monotony. Liviu tries to hold himself together, to run from his condemnation, and to pretend that everything is fine. One scene that I want to talk about right here, right now is the final argument between Veronica and Liviu. It's an intense disagreement. Veronica talks about how she would rather be a whore in a foreign country than stay with him. And he loses it, and becomes aggresive and abusive.... Lica, being a witness to this, tries to mollify the interaction, but it's all in vain......

Second of all, let's talk about the script. The script has a shocking sense of realism. The cursing honestly, while innapropiate, gives the movie a raw view on reality. But to be fair, I understand why for some was too much. The movie was trying to present flawed, almost pathetic characters, that only ones like them would talk like that. I've heard that this movie has no story: I disagree. Instead of the characters going on a specific mission, it's a journey of viewer witnessing the characters having to deal with the reality that they refused to explore. The Starting Point would be the characters' introduction, with their masks and monotonous lifes. And the end of the journey would be the characters, being ht by reality, but they don't manage to fix their lifes, even with this lesson. Throught this entire movie, the characters have been condamned to living a hard life, and each and one of them processed this in different ways. This is obviously trying to symbolise the condemnation of poverty and how life as a taxi driver can feel like a maze with no end, no escape, no light at the end of the tunnel. So if we look from this perspective, it's not a journey of the characters, but a journey of the spectator taking a look at characters that embody average people with, unfortunately for a majority of people, average problems. It's up to the audience to deduce the message. And this is shown is the movie in a surprisingly elaborate way. For example, each client of Lica is also a way for the movie to show his personality, and how he deals with poverty. His story is more of a reality check, where his pride is smashed. His first client is a pretty soft and quiet person, easy for him to make himself look mature and successful. The next scenes feature him humilating a young woman, that is later revealed to a familiar face with a lot of authority (Maria Popistasu). She shows him a different perspective on life, one where he is the fool, where he is not mature and not successful. And just like we've said, him actually being a sensitive person, a coward, he doesn't fight back , his courage faded away and he become submissive and humiliated. From now on, he tries to mock his clients, trying to make them look foolish and to make himself look good. Of course, he is hit by reality again, the feeling being temporary.

The directing is good, the actors are good, and overall I think this movie has a valuable message, presented in a competent, admirable way.

I did not expect to like this movie as much as I did. It was quite a surprise. Especially since I just came from the airport with a taxi and had a long (and pleasant) conversation with the driver who had an interesting story about him transitioning from football player to olympic canoe and now taxi driver in Bucharest.

I was really impressed by Maria Popistasu and Alexandru Ion. The conversation between the two about capitalist sex had me in tears when he went a bit overboard and she reacted, the look on both their faces made me laugh so hard I woke up my kids.

A few minutes later, Lica trying to connect to his last client by telling him how he lost his love brings you again to tears, this time sad tears.

Yes the story, although sprinkled with funny moments, is a sad one and it is beautifully said and put on film.

My only grief is the movie was so short, I didn't want to let go of the characters so soon.

Congrats to the writers, director and cast!

I really don't understand the hate comments. The way I see it, "Taximetristi" behaves like an impressionist novel: we only experience a brief, raw sequence in the complex lives of the characters. Details about their lives are gradually unraveled to the viewers and we have to assemble the puzzle ourselves while only being given one small piece at a time (like learning about the hardships and the broken relationships of the characters). It captures perfectly the "hood" life in Bucharest and the way in which different characters adapt to it (with raw, unfiltered words and intentionally obnoxious behaviours). The film is intense, with moments of laughter and deep sadness, and manages to make us, the viewers, feel like passengers in a taxi: we get into the car not knowing anything about the driver, then find out a series of diverse and intriguing pieces of information about the driver's personal life, with joys and sorrows, and after we reach the destination and exit the car, we move on towards our homes and our own lives. But even so, we can't stop wondering about how the driver's life will turn out to be, and most probably we will never know (such as Liviu's relationship with Veronica). There is also an overall irony concerning Lica's life: he goes from bragging about seducing a policewoman to deeply regretting the end of his former relationship, and he goes from making fun of a gay person to begging another gay person to have a beer with him so that he could stop thinking about his misery and loneliness, even for a moment. This is "Taximetristi".

The film is not your typical cheap, dull plot that other scenarists try to sell you.

You might even get a taste of life's harshness from it. The actors have performed in a distinct way than in other Romanian movies.

I don't know/understand why it has been such a big fuss about the language. It's nothing but the truth. The focus has been solely on the depressing existence of taxi drivers, with no additional sparks added. This is in contrast to the typical unfortunate individuals that one encounters in today's society

The movie is not boring, yet the reality might have an impact on those how do not understand how life really is outside their corporate/usual pink life. Keep an open mind.

Idiotic script, but the acting is worse than the script.

Never laughed once this entire ''movie''. The only ''acting'' they do is swear, all movie long.

The IQ needed to watch this movie is at a 5 year old level.

I'm 34, lived in Bucharest for many years, this ''movie'' is simply trash.

In this ''movie'' you are taught that if you do honest work, no matter your job, and don't make a huge lot of money, you are automatically an idiot, a stupid person (like that feminine character sais so many times, who's an interloper wife or whatever - practically she didn't achieve anything on her own, she just offered her ass).

You are told on the other hand that if you hustle people, if you're slick, if you lie, cheat, break the rules, offer bribe, rob people, you are doing a good thing and you are cool, this is the way to go.

This is the behaviour these ''actors'' and ''director''/''producer'' are encouraging in children nowadays. This is the society these guys want to live in, as they so proudly promote it in they garbage production.

Watch IDIOCRACY (2006) - this is the world in which these ''actors'' and ''director''/''producer'' are living.