Harry Lloyd, Vera Farmiga, Mark Strong, and Anton Lesser star in "Closer to the Moon" from 2014.This is a fictionalized version of the The Ioanid Gang's bank robbery in Romania that took place in 1959. The gang was made up of six Jewish Romanian intellectuals (at least in this film, though there were others involved apparently). They stole Romanian lei, about $250,000 U.S. dollars from an armored car at the National Bank of Romania.This was a controversial robbery (to say the least) because no one exactly knows why they did it. The Romanian lei could only be used in Romania and not exchanged for hard currency, though supposedly the money was going to Zionist organizations. However, none of the robbers were Zionist.The film comes up with a theory. These people were underground revolutionaries fighting the Nazis in WW II. At that time, they knew they could be caught and killed at any moment. The leader says to them, robberies are never committed in Communist countries, it's something done in capitalist countries. Let's rob a bank and make people sit up and take notice and question the ideals of Communism. We never expected to live this long anyway, so let's make our lives count. If they are caught, the punishment is execution.They pull off the robbery under the guise of shooting a film. They are caught and then re-enact the robbery for a propaganda film. Were they forced to, were they told their executions would be canceled - no one knows.A strange film on a strange subject for sure. My problem was that it was presented at times in a very lighthearted way with jaunty music which was odd given that the end result was going to be execution. There's nothing wrong with using humor in serious matters - Divided We Fall is an example, as is To Be Or Not to Be, and The Producers - but this was an odd mixture that, while interesting, didn't come off.The film was also slow-moving and lacked excitement.In the real story, the woman, played by Farmiga, is not executed and ultimately freed because she had two children. In the film she has one child, and a slightly different reason is given for her freedom.The acting was good, particularly from David DeKeyser and Alan Corduner. This I don't believe is an accurate re-telling of that robbery, but if you have any interest in it, you may like this.

Just so you know, I am Romanian, and I've lived there before and after 1989. This film is full of historical inaccuracies (except the main subject, the robbery, which indeed took place in 1959). I wanted to leave within 20 minutes, but that would've not been polite towards the other people in the theater, so I put up with it till the end, to my utter despair. It reminded me of commie propaganda, except this one got a mushy Hollywood feel, and is cheesy to the bone. I can't comment on the acting/directing/etc., since I wasn't able to watch it beyond the first half an hour; I was that disgusted with it. I've seen movies by this director, and expected something decent at the very least. It wasn't the case. If you frequently watch Hollywood B movies, then you'll be fine with it. If you prefer intelligent, well articulated movies, don't bother. This is as commercial as it gets. That being said, it's probably not as bad as Titanic (thus a rating of 2 instead of 1).

About five minutes into this film I had the sinking feeling that I had just paid to see a film I would not want to watch. I chose it from a list of "On Demand" films on TV and the blurb was misleading otherwise I probably wouldn't have chosen it. The blurb said something about WWII, Jews,and Communism, so I thought it was about WWII and the Holocaust, but it is not. Anyway, I would have stayed with it but found it both confusing and boring. It struck me as an artistic film that's more about the acting and other aspects of its production, than it is about storytelling. I found it to be similar to watching an early Fellini production in which a certain grotesqueness about the actors' faces and behaviors is supposed to be moving and often, humorous. Perhaps if I had had more knowledge about the history upon which the film is based, I would have enjoyed it more? Somehow, I don't think so.There's also the possibility that the discomfort I felt watching the film was the reaction the director and producers were going for. If that's the case, I suppose it warrants a much higher vote than I gave it.

Unless you have at least some basic knowledge about Communist Romania, this movie might seem very far away from a rating of 10. As the story unraveled, it sucked us into an atmosphere that most of us feel is long gone, and nevertheless, so close to us. It's the period when the first cracks in an apparently perfect egalitarian world started to appear. Robbing a bank with guns in a communist country is like robbing a supermarket of its toilette paper. Money then and there was useless unless you could justify its origin. And that is what makes this story so strange for us. But there are many, many other layers to the story. The cast is great. The historical background is fascinating (at least for us, Romanians). And the cinematography is far above average. This movie was like a breath of fresh air. One full of poisonous gases, as seeing the movie, you will discover that there are many things about the human race that will upset you, but at the same time, air that provokes an uncontrollable laugh. Some people in the audience didn't appreciate the jokes. I did, because I considered it was the only way not to make the most depressing movie in the world. A masterpiece that will most probably be considered as such many years from now, when people will start making movies about our not so egalitarian society.