Thunderbirds

Munje!; Comedy, Serbia, 2001; D: Radivoje Andrić, S: Boris Milivojević, Sergej Trifunić, Maja Mandžuka, Milica Vujović

Mare and Pop are two hip teenagers who payed a lot of money to the fishy Gojko who was suppose to help them bring their album out on the market, but ran away with the money. Mare and Pop meet the blond Kata on some party, Gojko's girlfriend, and become her friends. They drive in a car through Belgrade's dark streets at night and talk about life. They meet a shop lifter and bring him along, as well as some drugged cop, until they decide to get their money with force. Mare and Kata disguise themselves and rob Gojko, eventually becoming a couple in a disco.

Director Radivoje Andrić filmed his oddball comedy "Thunderbirds" with an obviously very limited budget (the pale cinematography really looks just like a home video camera) and in a blurred slang of the teenagers, yet their energy attracted over 600.000 viewers at the Serbian box office and became a real big movie hit. Heroes Mare and Pop seem like the Serbian version of Beavis and Butthead, yet they manage to get some style across: for instance, in one scene Pop takes the remote control and "turns off" the shouting of his mother; the heroes are running behind some buildings while some gentleman looks directly into the camera and says: "Out of this juveniles real intellectuals will emerge". The real highlight is a completely random appearance by Lee Davis, the friend of the director: in a driving car, the drugged friend of the hero suddenly starts talking nonsense: "Everyone is taking photos of us with their satellites! The FBI, the Vatican, the CIA!," until he puts his naked butt through the window, while an American Officer from some surveillance center is looking the sight on his monitor and just says: "Those crazy Serbs!" Yet, the rest of the story is bland and lax, while the two hip teenagers (plus the attractive Maja Mandzuka) simply can't hold a candle to the sheer spirit of some other, really hip youngsters from superior films, like "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" or "Wayne's World".

Grade:++