Kontroll

Kontroll | |
| Rated: | None |
| Director: | Nimród Antal |
| Cast: | Sàndor Csànyi, Zoltàn Mucsi, Csaba Pindroch, Sàndor Badàr, Zsolt Nagy, Bence Màtyàssy, Gyõzõ Szabó, Eszter Balla, Lajos Kovàcs |
| Genre: | Drama, Foreign, Romance |
The Hungarian import Kontroll belongs alongside Trainspotting and Run Lola Run within a special subset of foreign films: those that can, when given the chance, play well in front of audiences of disaffected American teens. Unfortunately for the rest of us, Kontroll shares another trait with those lauded mid-’90s films: It feels worn and dated by about a decade. Director Nimród Antal’s film follows a crew of subway workers who patrol the underground trains and tunnels of Budapest. Day after day crew leader Bulcsú (Sándor Csányi), who has dropped out of polite society and sleeps in the tunnels, does battle with recalcitrant passengers and rival crews, and shoots the shit with generally inebriated train conductor Béla (Lajos Kovács) before a romance and a hooded serial killer stir things up to a fever pitch. Kontroll’s energy level owes a lot to ’90s notions of film as techno-fueled music videos, and it suffers from pacing and plotting problems, not to mention a sappy ending. Still, its vivacity, good (moderately dark) humor, and effective action sequences merit it that slender audience of subtitle-savvy American teenagers it may never find.