100
Porumboiu is one of the few helmers working today who so completely understands both the power of language and the power of visuals.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
100
Police, Adjective is a deadly serious as well as dryly humorous analysis of bureaucratic procedure and, particularly, the tyranny of language. Images may record reality, but words define it.
80
The climax, in which the detective's commanding officer gives him a dictionary and subjects him to a sort of linguistic browbeating, is a marvel of dead air and unspoken oppression.
50
Wall Street Journal by Joe Morgenstern
The movie comes on like a put-on--next to nothing happens for an excruciatingly long time--and ends as a fascinating dialectic between following one's conscience or following the law.
40
Shockingly dull.
80
Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan
Police, Adjective may not be the film you're expecting, but it's one that will stay on your mind.
75
Police, Adjective has considerable power, and the issues it raises linger in the mind.
100
Chicago Tribune by Michael Phillips
It's not for all tastes; it requires some patience. The more your own job involves absurd, time-consuming bits of minutiae, the more familiar (and amusing) it'll seem.
75
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
Its surprisingly effective key scene involves an argument with his captain over the dictionary definitions of the words "conscience" and "justice." This may not sound exciting, but it was welcome after legions of cop movies in which such arguments are orchestrated with the f-word.
83
A clever, exceedingly wonky procedural about a undercover cop (Dragos Bucur) who quietly refuses to do what he's told.