MEN OF DEEDS - Mark Reviews Movies

Men of Deeds, Dekanalog

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Review by Mark Dujsik | August 3, 2023

Wanting nothing more than the opportunity for a quiet and fulfilling life, Ilie (Iulian Postelnicu) has taken a job as the police chief in a small, remote village somewhere in Romania. The problem, as it becomes clear after the brutal killing that sets off the plot of Men of Deeds, is that people in such places are still capable of crime and corruption. They're just better able to hide it, because few people on the outside care and the insiders who do so also know exactly the type of people with which they're dealing.

Director Paul Negoescu's film continues what has become a common theme in Romanian cinema as of late, in that it does explore the overwhelming nature of corruption in the country—seemingly at every level of life. The hook here is that the location is so isolated, so limited in terms of resources, and so removed from any form of substantial influence that it might seem ridiculous that anyone would bother playing power games in such a place. It's a little place, populated by relatively little people, but when, really, has that ever stopped the worst of human nature from emerging?

There's a pettiness to the corrupt figures in Radu Romaniuc and Oana Tudor's screenplay that's rather compelling. It's in the village's mayor, who is named Constantin (Vasile Muraru) and has somehow made a very comfortable life on a vast estate in this place, and in the local priest (Daniel Busuioc), who serves as the mayor's right-hand man and gives his deeds the appearance of religious authority. The plot revolves around the murder of a local farmer, one of the few who still remain in town, and his widowed wife Cristina (Crina Semciuc), whom the mayor and the priest can't speak of without noting that she's "a very beautiful woman."

That pettiness, though, exists in Ilie, too. His life is a shambles—divorced, financially struggling, watching as his life is passing him by without any account. Without any real power, Ilie takes out his frustrations on new cop Vali (Anghel Damian), a young man who believes in his job and doesn't realize the local politics of his new precinct.

Meanwhile, Ilie just wants to buy and run an orchard, so when the killers confess with a "reasonable" explanation and offer Ilie exactly what he wants, the cop, played with pitiable depth by Postelnicu, accepts both the explanation and the offer. Gradually, he figures out that the real price—of whatever principles he has since forgotten—is far too high.

The film's small-time crookedness might make it feel like a comedy at times, but by the eruption of violence at the climax, it has become clear that whatever superficial quirkiness might be on display here isn't to be taken lightly. Men of Deeds takes itself, its characters, and its ultimate point sincerely, and as a result, the film is a thoughtful exploration of the inherent pettiness of corruption.

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