MOVIE REVIEW – If anyone was waiting for Romania to throw its hat into the street-racing spectacle ring, here it is – only it feels like The Fast and the Furious ordered off Temu and reskinned with a thick layer of Need for Speed. The formula is textbook: gleaming machines, overclocked adrenaline, steering-wheel posturing, and a plot that runs out of fuel roughly when the tires hit operating temperature. In return, the visuals and race sequences are surprisingly solid, strong enough that you occasionally almost believe you’re watching a proper movie rather than an extended car-culture montage.

The film hooks you where it’s easiest: on the audiovisual front. Bucharest at night and the Transfăgărășan highway look like they were scouted by someone with a gamer’s eye for where speed photographs best. The sound design goes hard, with gear changes that feel almost physical, sometimes to excess. It’s no accident that comparisons to a “Romanian Fast & Furious” keep surfacing, though this one stays closer to asphalt-level bravado than globe-saving absurdity. Visually and rhythmically, The Race leans heavily into the same sleek, high-adrenaline vibe as the 2014 Need for Speed film: light trails, tight cutting, and the constant sense that something expensive is about to happen.

And expensive things do happen. A recurring marketing point around the production was its commitment to real metal: Romanian reports noted dozens of supercars on set, and the filmmakers proudly highlighted that a Lamborghini Huracán STO was genuinely wrecked during filming. Not CGI, not “we’ll fix it in post,” but real-world destruction at real-world cost. It’s the move The Race uses to argue its authenticity – this isn’t just posing, there was actual risk involved.

Need for Speed Energy, Romanian Edition

The story belongs squarely to the “as simple as a plank” school and doesn’t pretend otherwise. At the center is Andrei (Denis Hanganu), a gifted mechanic and driver who drifts into the world of illegal racing because money is tight, pressure is mounting, family issues loom, and there’s always someone insisting the answer is one more night run. The film delivers exactly what this kind of genre piece typically does: sketch a dangerous ecosystem, introduce a few “big players,” and let engine noise carry the drama rather than the script.

Hanganu is serviceable, but his character operates on roughly one facial setting and two emotional gears, and the arc seems to stall somewhere between the starting grid and the home stretch. Andi Vasluianu, by contrast, clearly comes from a different tier; whenever he’s on screen, scenes gain weight, dialogue finds rhythm, and the film briefly pretends it’s about people, not just horsepower. The supporting cast is uneven, often merely passable and occasionally outright weak, a problem compounded by the film’s periodic attempts at forced youth appeal through TikTok-flavored influencer moments. Sometimes it passes as background noise; other times it lands squarely in cringe territory.

On the female side, one of the film’s most visible presences is Cristina Ștefania Codreanu, known as Stefania, a Romanian pop singer and media personality. She’s undeniably photogenic, and the “femme fatale lite” package built around her works on paper. The issue is that the performance rarely rises above posing, leaving her functioning more as visual garnish than as a fully realized character. Glamour: checked. Credibility: frequently missing.

When the Stunt Team Carries the Film

The Race’s true strength lies in the choreography of its races and its visual execution. The Transfăgărășan curves, the Bucharest night runs, the sound design, and the pacing combine into a car-movie experience that genuinely justifies the ticket price. It’s clear this wasn’t assembled on pocket change; by Romanian standards, it’s a conspicuously ambitious swing. The 4DX rollout also pushes the experiential angle, even if 4DX always risks the seat overacting the scene.

The trouble starts whenever screeching tires and polished rims leave the frame. Dialogue often slips into oversimplification, motivations are transparent, and whenever the drama threatens to deepen, the film downshifts and goes for another lap instead. It’s not a fatal flaw, because The Race knows exactly what it signed up to be: a fast hit of spectacle and adrenaline, with a story that exists mainly to justify more throttle.

If you walk in expecting Romanian street-racing action that visually blends the gloss of the 2014 Need for Speed film with the street-level swagger of The Fast and the Furious, The Race delivers on its promise. Just don’t go looking for nuanced character drama; here, “development” mostly means louder music and faster cars by the end.

Glossy, Loud, and Occasionally Exhausting

The Race is the kind of film that tries to win you over with stunt work and cinematography, not screenwriting. The visuals are genuinely strong, the races have bite, and it often feels like real machinery, not green-screen fakery, is doing the heavy lifting. The story, however, is painfully simple, and the performances vary: Andi Vasluianu elevates the material, Denis Hanganu gets the job done, and Stefania works better as eye candy than as an actor. In the end, it’s a competent but flawed car-action outing that feeds the eyes and leaves the brain with little more than a shrug.

-Gergely Herpai “BadSector”-