Vlad Ivanov (Snowpiercer / Toni Erdmann) returns as the almost unreadable Police Inspector Christi Anghelache from the previous Police, Adjective, now having transferred to Bucharest and referring obliquely to the earlier part of his career in a conversation with his boss, prosecutor Magda (Rodica Lazar - Puzzle / The Last Day), with Catrinel Marlon (Three Touches / The Ploy) playing an archetypical femme fatale in the form of Gilda, and if you think the name, obviously referencing Rita Hayworth’s iconic 1946 film, is a touch obvious, you may be surprised at how much fun Porumboiu is having here in referencing other films, genres, cinematic cliches, and even his own body of work, with such touches that not only is Christi’s apartment under CCTV surveillance, so is Magda’s own office in the main Police building, the country’s heritage of spying on each other having remained even after the fall of Communism. One can see why an apparently impenetrable whistling code would seem appealing.

Porumboiu’s plots are never simplistic but this adds multiple doublecrosses and betrayals as Cristi, Gilda, Paco (actor and director Agusti Villaronga - Moon Child / 99.9), Kiko (Antonio Buíl - Animal Heart / Milky Way) and Zsolt (Sabin Tambrea - TV’s Berlin Station / Babylon Berlin) all vie for position, in a story where the only things which seems to be missing is trust in another human being, and the director is clearly enjoying himself, to the pojnt of having in-jokes, such as having a gathering of the gang on the island being is interrupted by an English filmmaker, checking out locations, for his next film, or staging a scene at the Bucharest Cinematheque, showing John Ford’s masterpiece The Searchers, and there are very definite and respectful nods in the direction of Hitchcock, the Coen brothers and classic 40’s noir.

The whole concoction generally delighted critics, The Playlist believing ‘This comedic thriller is witty and diverting without selling out on the Romanian reputation of thoughtful, challenging work’, and The Wrap adding ’The Whistlers is no minimalist slice of realism, but an oversized, deliciously twisted ride that runs on an endless supply of black humor and a sizeable body count. You won’t laugh much while you’re watching it, but it’s a hoot nonetheless’. The Guardian thought ‘Porumboiu gives us a knotty, twisty, nifty plot that’s quite involved but hangs together well, and there’s an amusing juxtaposition of gloomy, rainy Bucharest and the sunny terrain of La Gomera. We also get a neat and unexpected coda’, while The Telegraph believed ‘It’s the kind of filmmaking with rich confidence in its own professionalism, like a hired assassin purring with his own satisfaction after a devious, trace-free job’. But to The Film Stage the pic ‘To its detriment, this has the feel of a film that has been constructed in service of one absurd idea’.

In case you were wondering, the mystery of why the filmmaker’s wife, Artantxa Etchevarria Porumboiu, is credited as ‘artistic director ‘ is never actually explained.