It's a well known fact that the 10 years break between "Reconstituirea" and "De ce trag clopotele, Miticä?" was fatal to Lucian Pintilie, making him lose his movie-touch in a terminal way, his last sparks in cinema being noticed in "Balanta" and "O varä de neuitat" - two movies that contained a few good scenes. Unfortunately, the shameful "Prea târziu" is only the beginning of the author's final decline...
While fancying to attempt an in-depth analysis of Romanian society of the '90s, the story only juggles with some opportunist concepts, speculating in a gratuitous and expositive way the painful impact of the so-called "Mineriades". The conclusion is ridiculously hysteric: Romanian people turned into an underground killing beast, hungry for blood, for whose redemption it's "too late"...
The directing is primitively-violent, using cheap naturalist tactics that try to pose as "style". And Pintilie's personal obsession for full frontal male nudes, showing their genitals without the least aesthetic or semantic legitimacy, reaches here nightmarish proportions... We are deeply sorry, but NOT EVERYBODY is fascinated by staring between the legs of naked men, thank you very much!
