Tandretea lacustelor

　　Despite the title ('tenderness of the locusts') there is very little tenderness in this TV film which tries to catch up one of the key phenomena of the political and economic transition in Romania after the fall of the communism - the taking over of part of the economy and even of the political system by the remains of the former regime. The lead character of the story is an ex-Communist who understood the nature of the changes and turned to capitalist, using criminal methods of making a fortune in the new system. He is fighting a violent take-over by the organized crime with the involvement of some of his older comrades and friends. While the ambiance described in the film may be right, almost everything else in the story is wrong, details are grossly exaggerated, dialogs are badly written, most of the characters are just sketchy caricatures without a life of their own. The team of actors is splendid, gathering some of the best talents of the more mature generations of Romanian cinema and theater actors (Victor Rebengiuc, Mircea Albulescu, Mitica Popescu, etc.), they do their best with the text and situations at hand, but it is evident they they would have deserved a much better script and they cannot save this film from falling in the sub-mediocre TV drama category.