Martina works as a pizza delivery girl in a joint run by her autocratic father, who became too protective of her after Martina's mother died when she was a kid. Martina often delivers pizza to Filip, a blond guy who often plays first-person shooter video games in an empty apartment. The two start a relationship. Her friend goes to the island of Pag for the Zrće party, but Martina's father forbids her to go there, as well. Martina thus decides to take her father's money and run away with Filip to Zrće during the night. However, unbeknownst to her, Filip suffers from paranoid schizophrenia: when Martina's ex-boyfriend attacks him in a night club, Filip shoots him with his gun. Filip then takes Martina hostage and forces a taxi driver to drive them to a cottage in the countryside. It turns out Filip killed his parents there. Upon chasing Martina in the woods, the police arrive and shoot Filip.
Considering that any genre outside the social drama immediately sparked interest in Croatian cinema for trying out something different, psychological thriller "F20" by Arsen Ostojic caught a lot of attention for being fresh and unusual. A lot of praise should be given to the two excellent actors in the leading roles; Romina Tonkovic as Martina, and especially the maestro Filip Mayer, the new hope of Croatian actors, who balanced a fine line between a psychopath and a normal, gentle person, refusing to succumb to typical cliches about people with schizophrenia on film. It should also be noted that "F20" signaled a point where the Croatian film lost its virginity: even though they are very brief, the two sex scenes are very modern and effective (one is when Martina is filming her sex with Filip in bed; the other is when Filip "takes" her from behind in his apartment). A few moments of black humor are also a plus point; in one scene, a police detective licks his finger and then touches his own nipple to "arouse" himself while watching a porn. In another, Martina is running and fighting for her life in the woods, while her oblivious friend is sending her selfies from the Zrće party beach. However, the movie works far better in the first half, as a love story, than in the second half, as a thriller, since some of its sudden outbursts of violence are not that inspired nor unique, settling for a rather predictable, standard finale with a "sudden", somewhat incomplete ending.
Grade:++
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