Collective

Directed by Alexander Nanau, Collective follows several investigative journalists at a Romanian newspaper as they look into the complete and total mismanagement of their country’s healthcare system. Filmmaker Nanau does an effective job of instantly luring the viewer into the deliberately-paced proceedings, as Collective kicks off with a striking opening stretch detailing the deadly effects of a 2015 nightclub fire and the botched care received by dozens of survivors – with the impact of this stretch heightened by the inclusion of striking (and thoroughly grim) real-life footage of the aforementioned conflagration. The movie does, past that point, segue into a very slow, very dry midsection devoted to the minutia of the reporters’ efforts at exposing the truth, and it’s clear that, at least initially, Collective benefits from an atmosphere of escalating intensity that highlights the corruption and incompetence of several prominent figures (and there are even a handful of admittedly unexpected twists here, eg a genuinely surprising death and a burn patient’s shocking mistreatment). There’s little doubt, then, that the movie’s tenuously engaging vibe takes a major hit from a meandering second half riddled with far-from-engrossing tangents, including a lengthy stretch devoted to lung transplants being performed abroad, which, in addition to ensuring that the whole thing fizzles out to a rather demonstrable (and unfortunate) degree, cements Collective‘s place as a sporadically interesting yet terminally unfocused documentary in dire need of streamlining.

**1/2 out of ****