Osijek. Nika, a waitress, secretly smuggles drugs in her bicycle for gangster Petar. However, one night, someone steals her bicycle while went to a kiosk. Nika informs Petar she thus lost his drug shipment, so he demands a compensation: she has the entire night to collect money from people who have a debt towards Petar. Nika, her friend Luka, who came back after studying in Zagreb to be a dentist, and Sara, thus drive in a car and go from place to place to try to collect the money. The first debtor, Voki, is stoned at a night party, doesn't have the money, but decides to join them. They meet other characters, like police officer Marin, but even he claims he has no money. They steal a backpack from four hooligans who owe money, and they now pursue them. Petar's men kidnap Luka to put pressure on Nika. She demands to see him, and then gives him just a small amount of money they all collected between themselves. Petar accepts, releases Petar, and flees. The four hooligans catch up to them and one of them stabs and kills Voki, before they flee.
Svebor Mihael Jelic's second feature length film, after "Zagreb Equinox", is this independent crime road movie about four people on an odyssey to collect money from debtors for a gangster, set during only one night, but a one which feels little more than just solid. The locations of Osijek are refreshing, and the main actress Kristina Jovanovic is very good as the protagonist Nika, but the whole screenplay is written almost like on autopilot, in a completely routine and standard way, without any memorable moments. Some exceptions do show up here and there, for instance the surreal scene of the "stoned" Voki imagining seeing five versions of himself, dancing in front of the police station, but "Fuss" needed more of such moments. The bizarre thing is that the story is divided into five episodes, each of which just end in the same anticlimactic way—the debtors claim they don't have the money. Chapters for each segment are bombastically introduced, such as "Police officer Marin", but then it is just a trivial episode of said Marin smoking outside the police station, chatting with Nika and her friends, and telling them he doesn't have the money. Since all of them end the same way, 2-3 could have been either cut to simply shorten this whole thing, or rewritten so that they offer something differently or more creative. A rare human moment appears when Nika's friend Luka simply tells her he wants to talk to her outside of the car, and then admits he doesn't want to participate in this night journey anymore, but she implores him since she doesn't have anyone else, which softens his heart and changes his mind. The finale is strange, with an abrupt, almost "interrupted" ending, and the dialogue is stale, yet the authenticity and depiction of Osijek's mentality was well established.
Grade:++
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