What gives? Didn’t Hungarian movies used to be seven hours long and made almost exclusively by Bela Tarr? Superficially, at least, Kontroll belongs to that new(ish) zippy, metamphetamined class of visceral, Hollywood-accented Euro-trash movies, like Run Lola Run or Taxi, a sort of Magyar magpie of a film. But like the cartoon at the end of Kill Bill Vol. 2 tells us – in the closest thing to a moral for the entire saga – "Respect the magpie. He’s your friend."
Besides, no-one could claim Kontroll was lacking in national character. Set amidst the gothic, slightly putrefied architecture of the Budapest Metro, director Nimrod Antal’s accomplished debut opens with a disclaimer from the Budapest Public Transport Co., insisting that the film’s depiction of their subterranean ticket-inspectors is symbolic, and in no way representative of the real deal. You can’t really blame them. No transport organisation would want to be associated with Kontroll’s renegade bunch of ticket collecting misfits, despite their endearing eccentricities. The central gang include cantankerous Musci, pea-brained rookie Nagy, narcoleptic Pindroch and oddball Badar. Their leader, the enigmatic drop-out Bulcsu (the charismatic Csanyi), is a man with a past and a fear of going above ground.
In this seamy, testosterone-fuelled world – a place surely best suited to those who get off on sniffing worn gym-shoes – even the spitting, fighting women are honorary blokes. The banter belongs a locker-room, macho swagger reigns supreme and the frat-boy pranks between rival Metro crews are elaborately cruel. They play Russian roulette with trains while dodging the sinister Stasi-like suits that run the place. Just to keep things really interesting, there’s a hooded figure stalking passengers, and pushing them onto the tracks, which may be any one of our quirky comrades.
In the vast expanses of darkness and weird neon hallucinations, can troubled hero Bulcsu find salvation in the arms of the girl (the otherworldly Balla) in a teddy-bear suit? Perhaps, but only if he survives the off-kilter, post-Communist, good versus evil allegorical components of this fable. If this symbolic goulash doesn’t scare you, this is a clever, acerbic film, with the wacky sensibilities of Repo Man or Brazil, propelled by a thumping, technoirish score.
Mr. Antal, it would seem, is one thieving bird to watch out for.