Maidgethma Wonderfully offbeat film!

SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Mischa Redfern I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Armand only an exercise to present , in regime limits, a honest thriller. cops - good and bad, the perfect police officer, few communist references, game with regime as proof of independence, shootings, feelings, action and slices from Romanian society in las years of WW II. nothing new. but it remains almost seductive. for the generations for who Nicolaescu films was perfect drug. for the kids of today as alternative to video games. for the nostalgia of old men who remembers their youth. and for a vision about national past not really pink but almost idyllic. it is a good film. more good today, after death of Sergiu Nicolaescu because emotions -circle for his ash - are perfect key to discover the nice parts for each movie directed by him. in fact, it is only testimony. about a time. and about an image of past, not very correct - Oastea Domnului was a respectable Eastern Orthodox organization as minor argument.

Mihnea the Pitbull From a strictly professional standpoint, this is the best movie ever made by Sergiu Nicolaescu. It's done with a pretty good narrative feeling, a clever insight in shooting the action scenes, and even a certain sense of building the characters - who, although as sketchy and shallow as in most of the Nicolaescu movies, were able yet to seduce the young and naive audience of the early seventies.The big problem remains the typical one for that epoch: political hypocrisy. The so-called "hero", a communist veteran who is appointed a police commissioner (Mihai Roman, played by Ilarion Ciobanu), is positively angelic: intelligent, wise, honest, resourceful, generous, kind and good-hearted. Of course, he MUST confront his old tormentor, commissioner Stefan Patulea (Alexandru Dobrescu), who beat the crap out of him years ago, when he was just a poor innocent subversive agent, nicely and heroically conspiring to deliver his motherland to the soviets - and now, of course, Patulea MUST be still an asshole, bent to get rid of the valiant communist (who, koochy-koo, doesn't have the least suspicion!) Fortunately, the one to save the day is the courageous, manly, gritty, trigger-quick, silver-armor knight Tudor Miclovan (Sergiu Nicolaescu), about whom the communist leader Nicolae (Emanoil Petrut) explicitly states: "He says he's apolitical, but in truth he's one of ours..." This kind of tricks were used in those years to coat the toxic pills of communist ideology in the sweet couch of thrills and adventure. Definitely, it's Nicolaescu main asset - to always be both with the devil, and with the candle (as an old Romanian saying goes...)

andrei1981-1 'Cu mainile curate' (With Clean Hands)is more a political pamphlet than anything else. Although any political/ historical movie had to be checked by a special division of the Communist Party, Nicolaescu managed to elude their vigilence on one hand and exploit their ignorance, on the other, to make a film which apparently presents the communists in a positive way. In reality there is a lot of subtle political irony, definitely noticed by the public, hence the great success of the film. The story of an apolitical commissar using old methods against the gangsters, very different from the communist view is very interesting especially because the communist view (although ideologically very dear to the Party) was very naive and utopical and of course the public understood the message very well. This commissar has a partner who was put there by the Communist Party, who was a former rugby player. This tells a lot about the irony in the film. The movie is very well made, very careful to details with a great atmosphere of Bucharest in the aftermath of WWII and in the turmoil of the communists ascension to power.

agd81 First of all, let me just say that I cannot speak about Cu Mainile Curate (With Clean Hands) without mentioning Ultimul Cartus (The Last Bullet). I can't. They are twin movies. They are practically a 3-hour movie cut in two. The definitive Romanian cop movie has always divided Romanian film fans into lovers and haters. Sure, the acting is sometimes awful, the clichés are blatant and the script sometimes lingers, but one can't deny the raw feeling you get when watching this movie, and that unforgettable piano theme sticks with you for the rest of your life.The plot involves two cops ("comissaries") in 1945 Bucharest. Miclovan is a dandy, trigger-happy tough cop who thinks it's better to kill villains rather than bring them to justice. Roman is a Communist-party-member-former-rugby-player idealist newbie (although the same age as Miclovan) who joined the force thinking life on the street is just like playing "cops and robbers". They are forced to work together following a series of bank and jeweler's stores robberies that Miclovan thinks are orchestrated by industrialist Semaca. The two embark on an investigation that will set them against Semaca's henchmen, with tragic consequences. The chemistry between the two cops is what it's important in this movie. Their different views on justice are obviously on a collision course and it all culminates with a fist fight between the two. They are, however, aware of each other's qualities and decide to be more open minded towards each other, taking on the bad guys as a team (it's kinda like "L.A. Confidential", if you will).The ending is symbolic, with Miclovan lying dead, shot by Semaca's men, and Roman retrieving the last bullet from his partner's gun and putting it in his pocket. At the time (1972), the audience was baffled by the ending, not knowing that Nicolaescu was already planning the sequel, in which the eponymous last bullet would play a pivotal role.